MOPTOP!

Please forgive me my amateur filming technique. 

I caught Sleaford Mods at Warsaw in Brooklyn on March 30 of this annum, and won’t forget that show anytime. For those who don’t know the Nottingham-based Mods, they are one part vocalist Jason Williamson and one part ‘beat-master’ Andrew Fearn. On that chilly evening in Brooklyn, the first night of their North American tour, Williamson famously brought the howling, gruff intensity, and Fearn, shouting off-microphone, shook and danced with trademark can of lager. It was quite ‘sausagey’ on line to get inside, but inside, many cute girls bounced around. Perhaps the audience could’ve misbehaved a bit more, but that’s an inconsequential quibble. Why admire the Mods without reservation? Why declare this the greatest show I’ve ever seen? It’s quite selfish really. They’re the performers I’d like to be. Unafraid to rage, to skewer, to curse madly, to bounce, to spit, to croon, to be odd, to be more energetic than groups half their age, to find their own space, to resist commercial molding—Sleaford Mods should be a lesson to every band and every poet who might (unaccountably) seek any other route.

You can listen above to one song, “Moptop,” I recorded on me phone, mate, from the show. It’s a song off the group’s newest album, English Tapas. In part, the song refers to the “moptop hairdo” of Boris Johnson, a British politician to whom some might apply words that rhyme with “punt” and “yacht.” According to the band, the song also delves into: “…the void that is modern music, internet attention spans, one-dimensional acts and the current trend of reformed bands looking to cash in with PR-heavy assaults that try to conceal their pointlessness.” Working from a few online lyrics sources, here are, what I think to be, the lyrics. Enjoy.

MOPTOP

Do you mind? You biffed my nose!

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

I’m sick of what I tell you for note

Saying fucking sorry to the catalogue vote

Having to be a bit naff and inclined

When all I really wanted was to batter ‘em blind

These pleasantries and intelligence

Are no real match for the spoon and tuppence

Of ale stops and tired minds

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

I feel like I’m not gonna cope

The game has changed its proper

Now it comes with no hope

Rotten clementines, no socks, no pants

All reformed band and dead pop chants

Like the tinsel mate it’s the ‘70s

Reminds me of a time when we were little kids

Reminds of a time when the coast was clear

But now it’s meatballs and jam as I float around, oh dear

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

I think before I say it better be in line

I think before I say and let the words slip by

He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a moptop
He’s got a blonde mop, he’s got a MOPTOP!