Tuneful gibberish (From Swindon Advertiser)

Tuneful gibberish

11:01am Monday 6th October 2008 in

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Q. Mr. Partridge,
Two outstanding bits of jabberwocky from your songbook are the gibberish you utter intermittently in "Snowman" and "Beating of Hearts".

Did they begin life as stopgaps, early in the songwriting stage, until you could hit upon something more meaningful? Or did you deliberately set out to write pseudo-lyrics that would prick up listeners' ears?

Either way, the end result was magical, like eating Mexican mushrooms with your eyes closed and your toes rosed.

Thank you,
Mr. Roy

A. Why D.Roy,D.Roy,I thank ee m'boy.

The gibberonian tongue I seem to speak so fluently is really my love of scat singing bursting to the surface.I kind of see it as vocal drumming.

The "boya da da" phrase in Beating of Hearts is me pretending to be a tabla teacher,{you know of course that tabla students have to be able to sing all of their beats and rhythms}.

The "dumma namma deepa namma doy damma doy" on Snowman is supposed to represent{to me anyway} a kind of absent mindedness or time passing sound.Scat is where its at,I'm the scat in the hat etc.

Be well.
AP