“Sarasponda” is the third song on Bachelors Anonymous’s eponymous six-song album, remastered and re-released digitally. Bachelor David Hughes tells the story behind the song.
Sarasponda, sarasponda,
sarasponda ret-set-set.
Thirty-six years after I used those words as the chorus to a phantasmagoric ditty by Bachelors Anonymous, I’m told by Wikipedia that “Sarasponda” is: 1) a children’s nonsense song, 2) a campfire song, and/or 3) a spinning song taught to Dutch daughters at the wheel, with a scheme behind their skeins: gaining a mate.
How strange. In fact, I was taught the song in high school by my friend Karin, not Dutch, but of Swedish seed. At about that same time I took a class in spinning and weaving. Had I sung as I spun I might have had some luck.
Ten years after Karin taught me “Sarasponda” I came upon a single by Anthony More (aka Moore, who had worked in the avant-pop group Slapp Happy and its merger with Henry Cow). More’s 1981 “World Service” was a favorite of mine and its expressionist imagery inspired me four years later.
“World Service” is about radiophonic imperialism and resultant blowback, a less literal “Listening Wind.” “Sarasponda” is a dream if not a delirium, lifting The Slits’ grapevine/bassline rhyme from their 1979 B-side, citing Richard Armory’s pulp classic along the way.
And then there’s Chatty Cathy…
Lyrics
The rustling of a dervish
Calls flies from the darkroom.
Striking a redundant chord,
The grapevine booms
With an obsolete language.
As the Minotaur croons, “Sarasponda…,”
The camera zooms.
Diving off the high board…
Diving off a high-rise…
Striking a redundant chord,
The bassline booms.
In an obsolete language
The Analyst moons.
Sarasponda:
The song of the loon.
Chorus
Sarasponda, sarasponda,
Sarasponda ret-set-set
Sarasponda, sarasponda,
Sarasponda, ret-set-set
Adoh-ray-o, adoray-boom-day-o
Adoray-boom-day ret-set-set
Hah-say-pah-say-o
Chatter in the garden
As the grapevine’s pruned.
Aluminum magnolias
Heavy with perfume—
A liquor with a shiver
That leaves you in a swoon—
Metallic magnolias
Everywhere strewn.
Diving off a high-rise…
Driving off the highway,
Striking you between your eyes.
Stroking him between his thighs,
A photostat cry
Goes out at high noon,
“Sarasponda…,”
A bit out of tune.
Chorus
Lyrics Reprinted by Permission
Credits
See album credits