Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs
"Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs" is a tribute to the artist L. S. Lowry, who had died two years previously. For the song, Coleman drew on his own memories of Salford and Ancoats as well as the paintings of L. S. Lowry. St Winifred's School Choir appeared on the record, singing the children's song "The Big Ship Sails on the Alley-Alley-O". The single spent three weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart. The b-side of the record was entitled "The Old Rocking Chair".
The tune of the song has been adapted into a song sung by fans of Scottish football club Celtic FC, entitled Willie Maley, who was a prominent figure in the early history of the club. The song can be heard on a weekly basis sung by fans, and played over the loudspeaker system at Celtic Park
The tune of the song has also been adapted by The Lancashire Hotpots in the song Dolby 5.1. A song about a lottery winner who fills his room with all the latest technology including PS3's and PS4's. Throughout the song the Hotpots sing "He had a plasma telly, and a Dolby 5.1, he had a stereo that were Bang and Olufsen" in the same style as "He left us matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs", and towards the end this is replaced with children singing the same thing - very similar to the way the kids end matchstalk men singing "The Big Ship Sails on the Alley Alley O", they then tell the kids to sing for their grandad, he's only in the care home down the road", most probably in reference to the later Winifreds Choir single - "No-one quite like Grandma"
Read more about this topic: Brian And Michael
Famous quotes containing the words cats and dogs, men, cats and/or dogs:
“Pollicle dogs and cats all must
Jellicle cats and dogs all must
Like undertakers, come to dust.
Here a little dog I pause
Heaving up my prior paws,
Pause, and sleep endlessly.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one’s own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Here was a little of everything in a small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition of the woods,... but there seemed to me, as usual, a preponderance of children’s toys,—dogs to bark, and cats to mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly are yet. As if a child born into the Maine woods, among the pine cones and cedar berries, could not do without such a sugar-man or skipping-jack as the young Rothschild has.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be a fool with a heart, than Jupiter Olympus with his head. The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)