1960 Lonnie Donegan: My Old Man's A Dustman

I commented back on 'Putting On The Style' that Lonnie was prone to wade into some plenty deep water when he put his music hall hat on. Maybe that comment should have been a warning - at a stroke 'My Old Man's A Dustman' demolishes all the good work done in his previous singles to lay down a marker that will forever brand him as an old time comedy turn. Which wouldn't be so bad (though still unfair) if the song was actually funny, but it isn't.

Recorded live at the Gaumont, Doncaster Doengan gets a foot stamping, hand clapping beat of sorts going, but he persists in calling a random halt to crack jokes only a ten year old with learning difficulties would find funny. And yet barbs like "I say I say I say, my dustbin's full of lilies (Well throw 'em away then). I can't Lily's wearing 'em" draws enough shrieks of hilarity to suggest an audience made up of simpletons on day release.

Donegan himself smirks and giggles through the lyric, but it's all too roughly hewn and unsympathetic to its characters to be funny, and in truth both he and his song sound as tired, dust covered and out of time as the 'pale and sad' old man he's singing about. There was always been a sly nudge and humorous wink about much of what Donegan did, but it worked far better in subtle, small doses that bubbled just below the fury of his skiffle.* As a straightforward comedy act, Donegan fell short and this......this is awful.

* Derek and Clive's 'version' is slightly more in your face with its humour - "My old man's a dustman, he wears a dustman's hat, he's got the fucking cancer, now what do you think of that?" At least it's honest in its misanthropy, and by drawing humour from its nastiness (rather than taking the piss out of your old man for looking "a proper nana in his great big bob nailed boots") it's all the funnier for it.