It must have seemed in the late sixties that you couldn't throw a stone at a pile of singles without hitting one with a Beatles connection; in this case, Scaffold's Mike McGear was Paul McCartney's brother (though 'Lily The Pink' is more in keeping with Lennon's music hall influences than anything else 'Beatley'). Based on the folk song 'The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham', 'Lily The Pink' keeps the main tune and theme of the older song (the real life Pinkham developed and marketed a compound tonic that supposedly cured 'women's problems' in the late nineteenth century), but then populates it with a procession of re-written characters that amount to little more than a production line of in-jokes. There's no reason why the casual listener shouldn't be amused by "Mr Frears", "brother Tony" and "Jennifer Eccles" too, but the biggest hobble here is that, for a knees up Christmas party drinking song, 'Lily The Pink' is remarkably flat and lifeless - four and a half minutes of sixth form Goons with A levels humour that never breaks sweat. No doubt it would raise a chuckle amongst its peers, but it's clearly wary about going too far lest the headmaster disapprove and contact their parents.On a point of trivia, Jack Bruce plays bass on this, so at least some interest is generated.
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