An old tree, a pub, a football team, a foundry, a marshalling yard and Brian Epstein have all been suggested as the meaning of which pop music reference?

lanfranco

I've never heard "Lily the Pink" by The Scaffold, but the reference is to "Aintree Iron": http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1840,00.html Feb 18 06, 11:59 AM

Baloo55th

I was playing it today in the crypt of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool! But that's not the song here. The one with Aintree Iron in is 'Thank you very much'. Aintree means 'one tree', and the generally accepted opinion here is that iron is short for flat iron - meaning a triangular piece of land! No to football, Epstein, pub (there is one known as the Flat Iron unofficially, but it's not near Aintree), foundry. The marshalling yard is unlikely, because Aintree didn't really have one, apart from the sidings for race day trains. The triangular goods yard was at Walton, near the hospital, and not at Aintree. Names like this persist in the Liverpool area. Near the city centre is a triangular piece of open land called The Rotunda. The cinema that stood there was flattened during WWII and never rebuilt, but it's still listed in bus timetables. Feb 18 06, 3:42 PM

lanfranco

O.K., Baloo, reading down the Guardian site, I see that the heading apparently did get it wrong -- except that if the gentleman who claims to have written the relevant song is on the level, the title is "Thank U very much for the Aintree Iron." Feb 18 06, 4:29 PM

gmackematix

Yay and thank you very much, Frankie. The title of this 1967 UK top five hit was in fact, "Thank U Very Much", written by Mike McGear (Paul McCartney's brother) asd was the first hit for his group The Scaffold. The group also included popular Liverpool poet Roger McGough and the following year had a #1 with "Lily the Pink". That was a novelty song about "medicinal compound" which featured a number of famous backing singers and instrumentalists. Other things thanked for in the song include the birds and bees, the family circle, love, the Sunday joint, out cultural heritage, national beverage, nursery rhymes, Sunday Times, the atom bomb, everyone, playing this record and our gracious team. For some unknown reason the record also begins and ends with ominous ticking. A link to a link about the proposed chopping down of the famous tree can be found here as well as another dodgy attempt to explain Aintree Iron (the shoes of the Grand National horses): http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/History_and_Myths/Question155140.html Feb 18 06, 7:20 PM

Baloo55th

Apologies for misspelling U. I had not long come in from a beer festival (where they had Shropshire Lad and Shropshire Gold - both already known to me - and one called Pressed Rat and Warthog). As to chopping down the famous tree - what tree? The one tree that gave Aintree its name is long gone. According to the Royal Forestry Society, http://www.rfs.org.uk/thirdlevel.asp?ThirdLevel=165&SecondLevel=33 beech trees like the one referred to seldom live over 250 years. The place name is recorded as Ayntre in 1220 so as we don't have bristlecone pines growing round here it's well gone and its actual location unidentifiable. Edge Hill goods yard is halfway round Liverpool from Aintree and, no matter what the fellow in that article thinks, would never have been called Aintree Iron. Feb 19 06, 7:18 AM

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