Elsewhere in this edition of Albion I look at the mammoth six-disc set Box of Scaffold. I had the pleasure of talking to Roger McGough earlier about the band, his career, and the state of the world.
I started by remarking how Liverpool in the early 1960s sounds like an absolute cauldron of cultural invention.
It was in retrospect —when you’re there, of course, you don’t realise what’s happening, not when you’re in the middle of things. I was born before the war, so it was very rough, very tough, and Dad worked on the docks. Then I was lucky enough to get to university. In those days we normally couldn’t afford it, but after the war there were opportunities opening up, so I went to Hull University and then came back to start teaching, without any ambition. I started writing a bit but didn’t know what to do with it. I thought that I might be a cartoonist at one point so I sent my cartoons to Punch, who said “Thank you very much, but we can get drawings in London,” so I’m afraid that was the end of my career as a cartoonist. But everything was happening locally, you know —there were these different rock n’roll clubs that would have an open night every week, and as poets we went for that. Brian Patten and Adrian Henri were first, then I started reading poems and doing little sketches. Then along came Mike (McGear/McCartney), a local hairdresser, and John Gorman who was hilarious, and I got together with them and it was great, because there was an audience who enjoyed what we were doing.
I assume that it’s always like this, that it’s only in retrospect that you understand that you were part of a cultural boom —and although it was quite fun it was also a time when the docks were closing down, so there was a dark economic background to all this joyousness.
I asked Roger about the development of the Scaffold’s material after their self-titled debut.
The Scaffold album was the first one that we did, and it was interesting because as you know we were reciting poetry and I was writing sketches, like John Gorman was. But he was very influenced by the political stuff that was going on at the French universities, but also the surrealist thing, The Goodies and the early stuff by the later Pythons, things that were more of a fringe influence for me. So that’s what we were doing, and then after The Beatles’ successes, television and other media people became interested in what was happening in Liverpool and were looking for the next big thing —who are going to be the next Beatles?— and that’s when we got the attention. Because Mike happened to be Paul McCartney’s brother, Brian Epstein took an interest, although I think he didn’t quite know what we did. After Paul introduced us to him he became our manager. Suddenly we were doing more music: prior to him taking over we had only one song at the end of the show, “Thank you very much for coming tonight,” which evolved into the single Thank U Very Much.
Then we were put into the studio and were making records, which meant that we had to start looking for songs. I could write lyrics and Mike music, and John of course was John! We had good fun. Although most of our songs weren’t silly, I think we were associated first and foremost with silliness, madness, and fun —which is fine as I don’t want to be taken seriously.
I put it to Roger that although some of the songs have very silly and satirical aspects, overall the Scaffold’s work is observational —not just in terms of its humour, but also containing straightforward observation of people in general.
I would like to think so, and it came out of the writing, the poetry and our experiences at the time. You’d go to studios like the Olympic Studios not far from where I live now in Barnes, Southwest London, and record with the likes of Jimi Hendrix on guitar, Graham Nash on vocals and Elton John (when he was still session pianist Reg Dwight), and that was amazing. I’d be there and I could sing a bit, keep me head down but hit the notes as much as I could. Then after the session or in between tracks everyone was chatting away, and it was great and I felt part of the gang —until somebody picked up a guitar or sat down at the piano and started to play, when I realised that I wasn’t a musician but a poet, something very different. But it was great to be given that opportunity to be part of what was going on.
As a poet I had a feeling for telling the truth and appealing to people’s sense of humour during hard times. Everything was political, with the nuke and the CND, the Martin Luther King assassination and so on, so whenever we did shows they were very much about what was going on in the world. But after the serious poems we would sing Lily the Pink, and that was the funny part. This is still what I do with my own shows —I will read poems about current events and then I’ll do a silly poem. I do the same with kids’ shows, that sort of jumping around.
I mentioned that this combination of the serious and the lighthearted was very obvious in the poetry that Roger contributed to The Mersey Sound, the anthology with Brian Patten and Adrian Henri (I was privileged to see the three of them at the Crucible in Sheffield for the collection’s twenty-fifth anniversary, as I studied it for my GCSEs).
Yeah, it was. At the time I was moving back and forth between music and poetry, but of course a lot of people in the poetry world thought that I couldn’t really be a poet because I was doing this silly singing, but on the other hand I wasn’t quite seen as a musician because I was also doing the poetry stuff.
Moving on to the Scaffold box set, I mentioned that one track that stands out as quintessential is Little Song and Dance Man.
That was a bit of fun, yes, but also quite dramatic. I will have to check that one out again — I look at the box set and there’s so much stuff on it that I’ve somehow got to find time for.
I asked if Roger likes revisiting his previous work or if he tends to be focused on his next project.
I’ve always concentrated on moving forward, unless there was something that I felt needed redoing. But it’s the next project that keeps you excited and going on, whatever it might be.
You’ve got a reading tomorrow, and you’re still very active gigging. What other projects have you got on the go?
There’s an organisation called the National Poetry Centre for Primary Schools which holds a Children’s Poetry Award, so I’ve been involved in judging that, and we’ll announce the winner at the National Theatre in June. I had a collection of children's poems out last year and I’ve been writing more poems since —it just goes on. I’ve also started writing poems for the Grand National, and I did a reading last week on ITV’s Grand National coverage. So I’m busy.
You mentioned earlier your concerns in the sixties with nuclear war and what was happening in America, but now we are many years on and just now it seems that not a lot has improved.
There just seems to be a lot of anger around at the moment, you know? Maybe the ways of expressing it are partly the problem —when people get angry they nowadays just press a button on social media and share that, and upset everybody else as well. Post in anger, repent at leisure.
I became a grandfather again three months ago to a baby girl and thought gosh, what is she coming into, with everything that’s going on? Then I remembered thinking the same thing about her mum, my daughter (who is now in her thirties), when she was born, but for a different reason. I was in my fifties and very worried because my own dad died when he was fifty-three, and I thought, when my daughter goes to the school will I still be here? But the next thing you know, I have a granddaughter!
Now that you live in London, do you visit Liverpool often or do you feel settled?
I’ve kept sort of feeling that I want to go back, and I do go back. I used to go and see my sister but she died at the beginning of the year, there are fewer friends around —you know what I mean, they do die or move away, but I still feel that I’m from where I’m from, which is Liverpool. I live in London as my kids and many friends are here, but I think Liverpool is always part of who you are. I feel that I’m lucky to have that and, of course, John and Mike both stayed.
Many thanks to Roger McGough for his time and to Matt Ingham at Cherry Red for arranging the interview.
