21 December 1968
McCartneys at number one in Ireland in 1968: Paul one, Mike one. Paul surely bears some moral culpability for ‘Lily The Pink’, though; Sgt Pepper evidently opened a market gap for tuba-farting English music-hall retro whimsy. English pop music never really ditched its end-of-the-pier variety show impulses. Robbie Williams eked a solo career out of dress-up-and-gurn buffoonery, and Simon Cowell made ’00s UK chart pop one big Saturday-night shiny-floor TV show. ‘Lily The Pink’ is just someone pissing into the same river from further upstream.
Fast forward and change countries to my otherwise happy ’80s Irish childhood. We learned ‘Lily The Pink’ in primary school, and there’s no mystery as to its possible appeal to schoolchildren – not just the bouncy rhythm and shouty chorus, but the meanness and cruelty. Being homogenous white Irish, we all had freckles and big ears anyway, so maybe none of us felt unduly picked upon. Still, it’s a wacky “comedy” song about making fun of shy, self-conscious people, from the same strain of irritating Little Englander passive-aggressive performative humour as ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ and “Come on, darlin’, give us a smile!” I despise it. ‘Lily The Pink’ is for pricks.
