still quite an ambitious commission to take on. yes, i suppose so. but it was a youth theatre company that i felt very familiar with, and i pretty quickly decided i could do it. just by sitting down and trying. and i had written a lot of songs by then and i had written, you know, i had gone through this phase in my teens, like a good teenager, of musicalising ts eliot poems. like, i ve got this song that i can still hear that goes: # let us go, then, you and i # when the evening is spread out against the sky # like a patient, etherised upon a table.# yeah, i know it. right? we all know that. and by the way, i ve gone back to eliot in my later years and it stands up, man. it s brilliant. it s beautiful stuff. anyway, i even had, i did a bit of wasteland as well. # this is the way the world ends.# like, i was using this grunge stuff coming out of seattle and, like, putting it to ts eliot lyrics. so i was already writing music to pre existing lyrics and this love s labour s lost thing was
and opposite reaction. and he wrote in the guardian, which was the paper i read and which had, what, in 2005, five million readers? it was pretty big because it was before it alljumped off the page, and he wrote this just utterly sneering review, one star review, really snobby in that sort of guardian way, like, quoting shakespeare. i was like, how dare you quote shakespeare at me? i ll quote shakespeare at you! and just incredibly sneering and ungenerous, a thing that just says i m terrible at myjob. it really, really threw me. and so, like, a year later, when i had to come up with a new show, i thought, well, i m going to take that guy down. so i wrote the song for phil daoust. # ding, dang, ding dang dong # this ends my phil daoust song # # everybody sing along # la la la la la la la # i hope something you love catches on fire, # phil. # ding, dang, dong, # i ve written you this special song # to show how far i ve come along
that s a revenge song, isn t it? yeah, i guess. you have written your own revenge song in the past, haven t you? i have written lots of revenge songs, yeah. there s one in particular. who is phil daoust? 0h, phil. oh, god. yeah, i feel bad about that. it s one of those interesting ones. when people ask about giving yourtime again, what would you not do and say? and with me, given that a lot of my comedy was sort of flirting around the edges of offence, they expect me to talk about that stuff, but actually when i regret. i don t. i regret hurting individual people. phil was a journo with the guardian in my first year at edinburgh. when i wasjust. it s not like i had spent years being lauded. i had spent years getting nowhere and years with closed doors. and i finally had an open door and everyone was being very generous in edinburgh. all right. so, anyway, i ve been here for a month playing funny songs on a piano. i m not a standup. i thought, why not, now i m feeling a bit cocky, do
revenge song in the past, haven t you? i have written lots of revenge songs, yeah. there s one in particular. who is phil daoust? 0h, phil. oh, god. yeah, i feel bad about that. it s one of those interesting ones. when people ask about giving yourtime again, what would you not do and say? and with me, given that a lot of my comedy was sort of flirting around the edges of offence, they expect me to talk about that stuff, but actually when i regret, i don t. i regret hurting individual people. phil was a journo with the guardian and my first year at edinburgh, when i wasjust, you know, it s not like i had spent years being lauded. i had spent years getting nowhere and years with closed doors. and i finally had an open door and everyone was being very generous in edinburgh. all right. so anyway, i ve been here for a month playing funny songs on a piano. i m not a standup. i thought, why not, now i m feeling a bit cocky, do a bit of standup?
no, it was the year i turned 18. so i was 17 and a half. still quite an ambitious commission to take on. yes, i suppose so. but it was a youth theatre company that i felt very familiar with, and i pretty quickly decided i could do it. and just by sitting down and trying, and i had written a lot of songs by then and i had written, you know, i had gone through this phase in my teens, like a good teenager, of musicalising ts eliot poems. like, i ve got this song that i can still hear that goes: # let us go, then, you and i # when the evening is spread out against the sky # like a patient, etherised upon a table.# yeah, i know it. right? we all know that. and by the way, i ve gone back to eliot in my later years and it stands up, man. it s brilliant. it s beautiful stuff. anyway, i even had, i did a bit of wasteland as well. # this is the way the world ends.# like, i was using this grunge stuff coming out of seattle and, like, putting it to ts eliot lyrics. so i was already writing music t