Sup up your beer and collect your fags -
There's a row going on down near Slough.
Get out your mat and pray to the West.
I'll get out mine and pray for myself.
Thought you were smart when you took them on,
But you didn't take a peep in their artillery room.
All that rugby puts hairs on your chest.
What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?
Hello-Hurrah - what a nice day for the Eton Rifles.
Hello-Hurrah - I hope rain stops play for the Eton Rifles.
Thought you were clever when you lit the fuse,
Tore down the house of commons in your brand new shoes,
Composed a revolutionary symphony,
Then went to bed with a charming young thing.
Hello-Hurrah - cheers then, mate. It's the Eton Rifles.
Hello-Hurrah - an extremist scrape with the Eton Rifles.
What a catalyst you turned out to be:
Loaded the guns, then you run off home for your tea -
Left me standing like a guilty schoolboy...
What a catalyst you turned out to be:
Loaded the guns, then you run off home for your tea -
Left me standing like a naughty schoolboy...
We came out of it naturally the worst:
Beaten and bloody, and I was sick down my shirt.
We were no match for their untamed wit,
Though some of the lads said they'd be back next week.
Hello-Hurrah - it's the price to pay to the Eton Rifles.
Hello-Hurrah - I'd prefer the plague to the Eton Rifles.
Hello-Hurrah - it's the price to pay to the Eton Rifles.
Hello-Hurrah - I'd prefer the plague to the Eton Rifles.
Uploaded by OpDePlanken on Oct 7, 2008
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This makes reference to England's elite college, Eton. It is a song about class warfare, with lines like, "What chance do you have against a tie and a crest." (thanks, John - Los Angeles, CA)
Paul Weller wrote this during his first holiday since the ascendancy of The Jam 2 years earlier. In the summer of 1979 he rented a caravan in the seaside town of Selsey in West Sussex on the southern coast of England. The Jam was a Punk/New Wave band that came out of England in the late-'70s.
Paul Weller was inspired to write this song by a news article that he read about unemployed demonstrators on a "Right to Work" march, a campaign initiated by the left wing Socialist Workers Party, passing the prestigious Eton College. The "Eton Rifles" are a cadet corps of Eton College, and the song itself is about the rivalry between boys at Eton and the neighboring working class schoolboys. Paul Weller himself attended Sheerwater Comprehensive school, which was located quite close to Eton.
Its possible that Paul Weller read about the march in the June 17, 1978 edition of The Socialist Worker newspaper in which case he would have read the following: "Eton had never seen anything like it. Right to Work marchers met Rock Against Racism punks weaving through the streets of Eton behind Crisis, a band pounding out driving rock music from the back of a lorry. Two movements coming together outside Eton public school, heart of privilege and pomp. The chants, 'Annihilate the National Front,' fake upper-class accents, 'What does one want - the Right to Work,' 'Eton boys rather naughty, Liverpool boys rather good.' Pogoing in protest as a giant silver spoon is presented to the Eton Head Boy. 'I hope your jolly campaign gets you somewhere,' he said."'
The opening line, "Sup up your beer and collect your fags, there's a row going on down near Slough" is a clever start to the song. The word 'fag' has a double meaning in England. It can be another word for 'cigarettes,' but an Eton schoolboy would more likely interpret it as a slang term for a young public schoolboy who must perform chores for an older student. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for above 4)
Throughout the 1980s Paul Weller was a political active Labour supporter. However he has since become disillusioned with politics. It was no surprise then, that he was shocked when in 2008 the Conservative leader David Cameron nominated this class war diatribe as a favourite tune. A flabbergasted Weller commented to the Daily Mirror October 24, 2008: "Which part of the song didn't he get? Did he think it was a celebration of being at Eton or something? I don't know. He must have an idea what it's about, surely? It's a shame really that someone didn't listen to that song and get something else from it and become a socialist leader instead. I was a bit disappointed really."