These archived essays were written by your editors in a younger and more innocent time and place. We present them as a time capsule of a sillier day, and one in which it seemed as though Doctor Who‘s final days on TV had been and gone…
This particular article later fuelled an unreleased track on Return to Kendal, in which the song Punch and Judy Man had some ‘hilarious’ lyric replacements.
It has been suggested, over time, that the lyrics to the now infamous Beatles song ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ have some relation to the consumption of the hallucinogenic LSD. Lennon, before his death, repeatedly stated that the song’s title was taken from the name a child gave to a drawing, and that the acronym is purely coincidental.
Still, the attention this drawn to music lovers everywhere has, until now, drawn people away from the far more seedy and dark world of one of the 1960s other pop icons. In this essay, I am about to set out to prove that…
Frazer Hines was a drug baron.
Hines, in a rare capture from a security camera. Note the shadowy figure on the left of the frame.
Where Lennon and McCartney used slightly surreal lyrics (“The girl with kaleidoscope eyes” etc), Hines all but admitted his connection to this dark underworld in the B-side track ‘Punch And Judy Man’. To examine this further, it is necessary to pass through the song line by line.
I heard the sound of children’s laughter fill the air,
And as I joined the happy crowd that gathered there,
My head began to spin just like a carousel,
Old Punch and Judy Man had weaved his magic spell.
The obvious line of interest here is the third one. An independent survey of Punch and Judy stalls has been carried out and it was discovered that only 1.2% of those interviewed experienced any form of ‘head spinning’ whilst watching the entertainment. (Lovell, 1979). This is sharply contrasted with the effects of any form of depressant, of which ‘head spinning’ is a common symptom.
Combined with the sounds Frazer hears in his head (“children’s laughter”) and the “magic spell” that is woven by ‘Old Punch and Judy Man’ (a street name for a particular hallucinogen common in the 60s), and we have the basis for what is to come. Frazer has told us what he is smoking, and the first two effects.
An interesting note is that a previous researcher believed that, if played backwards, the song came out as “Drugs are good, do some Punch and Judy man, Frazer is your friend” and then proceeded to give out Hines’ telephone number with international dialling code (Craddoll, 1984). This cannot be substantiated as the first stanza run backwards comes out something like this…
Llep cigam sih devaew dah nam yduj dna hcnup dlo,
Lesuorac a ekil tsuj nips ot nageb daeh ym,
Ereht derehtag taht dworc yppah eht denioj I sa dna,
Ria eht llif rethgual snerdlihc fo dnous eht draeh I.
…clearly nonsense. But to continue with the dissection…
Hey Punch and Judy Man the greatest show on Earth,
Roll up roll up my friends, you’ll get your money’s worth,
He’ll make you laugh and sing and chase your blues away,
Oh help me if you can, oh Punch and Judy Man.
Hines starts by making the clearest statement in the whole song that he is referring to drugs and not the seaside entertainment.
“The greatest show on Earth” is a phrase that an addict could quite easily use to describe a hit of ‘Old Punch And Judy Man’, but were Hines singing about a Punch and Judy show, the line would have been more likely to run:
“Hey Punch and Judy Man, not bad if you’re a bit bored.”
After this, he goes on to explain how to create your own spliff. One can almost imagine, had pop-videos been around at the time, Frazer surrounded by a group of eager children as he rolls some ‘Punch and Judy Man’, singing “Roll up, roll up my friends”. Here, he also reassures people that a hit of Punch and Judy Man was well worth the money, something that would not be necessary were he describing the cheap Punch and Judy shows.
Finally, Hines begins to describe the restorative effects ‘Old Punch And Judy Man’ was well known to have upon the mind after a bad trip. If one was suffering from the effects of an impure drug, one had only to have some ‘Old Punch’ and one could chase their blues away.
He took us on a trip across the magic sea,
To great adventures in a world of fantasy,
Far from the busy streets to Never Never Land,
Just by the simple waving of his clever hand.
This particular stanza does not even require going into in much depth to see what Hines is saying. Firstly, due to the commerce involved in the seasides where Punch and Judy shows normally take place, nearly all seasides are bustling with activity and one cannot step more than 50 metres from “the busy streets” (Williams, 1953). Also, to suggest the talent involved in putting on a Punch and Judy show is simply the waving of a man’s hand is derogatory towards these performance artistes. Far easier, then, to imagine Hines’ dealer waving his hand to create the spliff which takes him to “a world of fantasy”
Note the key change after the next chorus, as Frazer’s trip turns more deadly and frenzied.
So if you need someone to tell your troubles to,
Just find that little man that’s all you have to do,
He was the one who always seemed to understand,
So come on, bring your troubles to the Punch and Judy Man.
Here we go into more depth on the restorative effects of the drug in question, first brought up in the second stanza. If one has ‘troubles’ (a bad trip), one should have a mere puff of Punch And Judy Man to make oneself feel better.
The song ends with Hines babbling into the microphone (“La la la la la, The Punch And Judy Man”), a clear indication of the dribbling mess lying in a gutter Hines ended up being in the mid-70s before his secret counseling sessions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Craddoll, W (1984) ‘Hines – Man or Beast?’ from Essays On Popular Music (eds D Mann, I Rustoe, F Jacobs). London: Hodder Headline.
Lovell, T (1979) Popular Seaside Entertainment. Oxford: Oxford Press.
Williams, K (1953) Geographical Anomalies In Coastal Cities. London: Boxtree (1989 reprint)
