- Barry Humphries
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Moonee Ponds Muse, Vol. 1
- Edna's Hymn Time: 0:14
- Lament for Maid Melbourne Time: 3:17
- War Savings Street Song Time: 3:39
- True British Spunk Time: 3:00
- The Highett Waltz Time: 2:52
- Sandy Agonistes Time: 15:44
- Dear Beryl Time: 5:03
- The Old Pacific Sea [aka Chunder In The Old Pacific Sea] Time: 2:51
- Snow Complications Time: 4:30
- Debbie Thwaite Time: 6:07
- Coplin Cartwright Time: 8:04
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1. EDNA'S HYMN
This ditty extolling the superlative advantages of Australian life was sung by Mrs. Everage in the first act of Just a Show (1967/8). This version, recorded in London in 1968 and included on the album Barry Humphries' Savoury Dip was arranged by Stanley Myers, with whom I frequently worked during the sixties. Nearly twenty years later he achieved world wide fame as the composer of the film score for The Deerhunter, with its haunting Cavatina theme, no doubt inspired by memories of Edna.
2. LAMENT FOR MAID MELBOURNE
This poem was composed in 1972 to celebrate the publication of a book about pollution. The book was officially launched by a Mr Robert Hawke, an innocuous trade union agitator of the period. This recording was made for a long playing disc of naive Australian verse. (The Barry Humphries Record Of Innocent Austral Verse).
3. WAR SAVINGS STREET SONG
This song was composed on a voyage from Rotterdam to Auckland and was first sung by Mrs Everage on the stage of the Assembly Hall, Melbourne, in A Nice Night's Entertainment, my first one man show (1961). It celebrates the patriotism of Melbourne, and those yellow tin plaques which, rusting slightly, could still be seen affixed to suburban telegraph poles in those streets which had most generously contributed to the war effort.
4. TRUE BRITISH SPUNK
A song for Edna recorded, but never transmitted, by the BBC in 1969. Although the sentiments contained in the lyric are clearly patriotic, the BBC felt that there was none the less something vaguely equivocal in the refrain which might offend schoolboy viewers. The television series from which this song was excised was called The Barry Humphries Scandals, a precurser of Monty Python; of which, sadly, no video tape copy survives.
5. THE HIGHETT WALTZ
I composed the words and music of this little hymn to one of Melbourne's newer suburbs in 1959. It was first performed in the Rippon Lea Studios of the ABC for a revue. The song was recorded for Wild Life In Suburbia, Volume II on the Score label, as part of the piece Highett Fidelity. This version was recorded in 1968 and arranged by Stanley Myers.
6. SANDY AGONISTES
This monologue was written and recorded in the basement of 2a Pembridge Gardens, Notting Hill Gate, London, in the winter of 1960. I had borrowed a tape recorder from a friend and discovered that it was possible, at the touch of a button, to superimpose one performance over another, giving an eerie translucent effect. The tape was sent back to Melbourne with several others similarly recorded, and issued by Ruth and Peter Mann on the Score label.
Sandy Agonistes was not a huge success, though I now regard it as by far the best recording I have ever made. It is, I understand, a collector's item these days. It was certainly recorded under the most rudimentary, even primitive, conditions, and one does not have to listen too carefully to hear the rumble of the big red double-deckers outside my Notting Hill basement window.
7. DEAR BERYL
This epistolary monologue has never been performed on stage. It was written during a New Zealand holiday in 1959 for the Score label just before I sailed off to Venice on the Toscana. It was always a great favourite with the late John Betjeman, who could recite it by heart.
8. THE OLD PACIFIC SEA
This song was written in the mid sixties for Barry McKenzie, the comic strip character which Nicholas Garland and I created for the satirical fortnightly, Private Eye. I first sang the song on a flimsy Private Eye record glued to the Christmas (1964) number. Later I performed it on stage as Nipper Dixon, the surf addict, in my 1965 offering, Excuse I. This recording was made especially for the Bulletin magazine under the title, Chunder Down Under. In the early 1970s it was once more sung and recorded by Barry Crocker in the film The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie.
9. SNOW COMPLICATIONS
This was a piece specially written for the other side of the Bulletin record, Chunder Down Under in 1965. It was recorded in Bruce Clarke's Jingle Workshop in Melbourne, and Bruce Clarke provides the accompaniment. I later performed the monologue and song on stage in Excuse I.
10. DEBBIE THWAITE
This recorded falsetto monologue of 1960 portrayed a type of Australian girl I kept meeting during my early weeks in London at the end of the 1950s. Often they succeeded in returning to Australia - always by steamer, in that far-off epoch - without having once met an English person.
The Debbies I knew - before the early days of jeans, duffle coats, backpacks and hitchhiking - all wore twin-sets, Black Watch tartan skirts, sockettes and sensible suede brogues. Beneath their bouncing pageboys they pronounced all that they admired 'superb'. Nice upper-middle-class Debbies' term of modish approbation would now be 'unreal', or 'am-aa-zing'; last year it was 'stunning' and before 'brillianf, before that 'super' and before that 'superb'.
Debbie's monologue was re-recorded in the late sixties and updated for decimal currency during her 'brilliant' period.
11. COLIN CARTWRIGHT
One of the monologues recorded in London for the Sandy Agonistes disc, is this Melbourne businessman intent on purchasing the affection of his children. On the recording the character suffers from attacks of flatulence induced by ulcers and apoplexy. Colin Cartwright has never appeared on stage.
Barry Humphries
BARRY HUMPHRIES DISCOGRAPHY
1958 WILD LIFE IN SUBURBIA VOL 1 (EP) Score POL014
1959 WILD LIFE IN SUBURBIA VOL 2 (EP) Score POL018
1960 SANDY AGONISTES (LP) Score POL024
A NICE NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT (LP) Parlophone 7519/PME09613
OLIVER! (ORIGINAL LONDON CAST)* (LP) Decca LK4359
1964 I SAW DADDY KISSING SANTA CLAUS* (SP) Private Eye flexidisc
MAGGIE MAY (ORIGINAL LONDON CAST)* (LP) Decca SKL4643
1965 PRIVATE EYE'S BLUE RECORD* (LP) Transatlantic TRA131
CHUNDER DOWN UNDER (EP) Bulletin MX19053/4
1967 ULYSSES RAG+ (SP) RCA 1579
THE ABOMINABLE RADIO GNOME* (SP) Private Eye flexidisc
1970 BARRY HUMPHRIES (LP) Parlophone PME09616
1971 BARRY HUMPHRIES' SAVOURY DIP (LP) Parlophone PME09716
FREEDOM FROM HUNGER CAMPAIGN ADDRESS (SP) AWA Custom AW32962A
1972 THE BARRY HUMPHRIES RECORD OF
INNOCENT AUSTRAL VERSE (LP) Philips 6357011
A TRACK WINDING BACK (EP) (w/Dick Bentley) Philips 6205 019
BARRY HUMPHRIES AT CARNEGIE HALL (LP) Philips 6357 010
RICKY ROO (by Sandy Stone) (SP) Philips 6037021 -1
1976 HOUSEWIFE SUPERSTAR (LP) Charisma 9124 004
1978 THE SOUND OF EDNA (LP) Charisma 9124 027
1979 DISCO MATILDA (SP) Big Time/Wizard BZA312
1981 LAST NIGHT OF THE POMS (LP, dbl) EMI EMC2742/3
SHOCK TREATMENT (Original Soundtrack) (LP)* Ode LLA3615
PRIVATE EYE PRESENTS GOLDEN SATIRICALS* (LP) Springtime HAHA6002
THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S OTHER BALL* (LP) Springtime HAHA6003
1985 12 INCHES OF LES: THE ALBUM (LP) Liberation LIB5064
1987 THE LES PATTERSON LONG PLAYER*= (LP) WEA 254779-1
1988 THE DAME EDNA PARTY EXPERIENCE (LP) Epic 463235-1
SPOOKY CHRISTMAS (SP) Epic 654503-7
1990 MY GORGEOUS LIFE t (LP) Collins
1991 BARRY HUMPHRIES SELF-INDULGENTLY PRESENTS
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SANDY STONE tt
(LP)
(SP) Single Play (EP) Extended Play (LP) Long Play
* Only feature Humphries contribution/s, or Humphries as ensemble player.
+ by Stanley Myers at the West Hampstead Tea Room, New Orpheans with vocal refrain by Master Barry Humphries and the Noveltones.
= Soundtrack to the film Les Patterson Saves The World by Tim Finn.
t Double cassette pack: "Dame Edna tells her own, scorchingly intimate story. Three gorgeous hours of listening."
tt Limited edition cassette sold at venues during 1991 Sandy Stone Australian tour.
New recordings of 1958-1981 material.