Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse

(Partridge)

Jules Verne's Sketchbook cover

Recordings Art Lyrics Chords and Tablature

Recordings

1. Demo version.
   Released in November 1987 on the Jules Verne's Sketchbook cassette.
   Also released on the reissue of Skylarking on 14 October 2016 in the U.K.

   Andy: “An early number written for the batch that became SKYLARKING. Again, a bassless demo (I ran out of tracks!) and I don't really know what it means. I think Red Rocking Horse is XTC and our career. . . ‘Their poison inks behind me, at the bottom of the sea, and your criticism doesn't worry me, and I'll sing Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse. . .’”

   Also available on Fuzzy Warbles Volume Two.

   Andy: “So I did. Time has given me a better grasp of the gibberish. Red Rocking Horse is XTC. In fact I see the iron age Uffington Horse with a set of rockers added everytime I hear this. The band knew that emblem as ‘Dobbin’, he was all over the Settlement tour stage set. Bit wrong to have called myself ‘The Taped Crusader’ though, that mantle would probably have fitted Holger Czukay better.”

2. Rehearsal version (Rehearsal at Dave's).
   Recorded at Dave's home.
   Engineered by Dave Gregory.
   Released on 2 December 2002 on Fuzzy Warbles Volume Two in the U.K.
   Also released on the reissue of Skylarking on 14 October 2016 in the U.K.
   Dave Gregory - piano

   Andy: “It's June '85 and I'm purloining Dave's biscuits again. So..., I hadn't been well, a severe bout of Stratosphearitis had left me very...um... purple in the mind. Poor old Gregsy had to bang along on his parlour piano to an indecently daft idea I had. Despite a small Black Sea of tea and a veritable Nonsuch palace of custard creams, we couldn't quite get this psychedelic stringbag off the ground. Back to the drawing board, I'll work on it at home.”

[Thanks to R. Stevie Moore]

Art

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Lyrics

Did you think you knew my game?
Did you think that fame and fortune's
All that I had in my head?
Bang you're dead
It's not a game I'm gonna play with you

Did you think I'm high and dried?
Did you think I'd hide from the
Tentacles of the deaf dumb and blind
Their poison inks behind me
At the bottom of the sea
And your criticism doesn't worry me
And I'll sing

Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Ride on over all remorse
Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Who won the course
Despite the fact that
No one backed him

Get out
Did you think you'd tied me up
Did you think that I would
Help but dance for your piece of paper
The taped crusader leaps in
licking all foes
Zap! Pow!

Did you think that I don't feel
Did you think that I'd simply heal up
After each ego beating
We can't go on meeting
Just once in every year
And in the meantime if we all stand up
And cheer, he'll appear
Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Ride on over all remorse
Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Who won the course
Despite the fact that
No one backed him

They all took their money out
And they laid it down, down
On the bright colored manes
They all took their money out
But they laid it down, down
On the different names to ours

Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Ride on over all remorse
Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Who won the course
Despite the fact that
No one backed him

Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Ride on over all remorse
Ra Ra for Red Rocking Horse
Who won the course
Despite the fact

Chords and Tablature

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