Fieldwork and textual exegesis

Bo Dudley

Academic interpretation gets its comeuppance:

Fieldworkers beware…

The longer audio version (on Derek and Clive live, 1973) has some pleasing further vignettes, like:

And then we hear the words “Right on baby!”…
Seems a little puzzling, “Write on baby”…
Well, let me explain: the father of the house has just walked into the wigwam, and he says “Write on baby” to the mother, meaning “write the shopping list on the baby for tomorrow morning”. […] Paper was scarce…
And then we have the line, “Get down baby!”—the baby realises that once again it’s going to be written on, and has climbed the wall. This is one of those distinctive, um, boogie, Harlem instincts…

For more and less successful enterprises, see the fieldwork category in the sidebar. And for more from Dud, see Dud’n’Pete tag, not least the psalm, and his Britten spoof in Stella Gibbons’s brilliant Em creeps in with a pie. See also Alan Bennett’s sermon, and  Replies from the Complaints Department.

8 thoughts on “Fieldwork and textual exegesis

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