Richard & Linda Thompson - Hokey Pokey

This is the last of the birthday haul. Richard & Linda Thompson's second album and one I'd not heard before, so it's taken a few listens to get to grips with.

Considering it came out in 1975, this is a remarkably modern-sounding album. The couple hadn't yet embarked on their religious journey, so the reference points are very English: including George Formby, music hall, sing-songs, rather than early folk, albeit filtered through Richard Thompson's rather studious and serious lens, something which is particularly at-odds with the more saucy, seaside postcard lyrics of songs like the title track.

Of course, Linda Thompson's voice is just superb.

I'm enjoying this album more with every listen and I can feel it in my water that this is going to get played a lot.

Incidentally, it wasn't long after we moved from England to Australia that we realised that the song, The Hokey Cokey, was The Hokey Pokey here. One of those linguistic differences that I'll seemingly never get used to, along with calling aubergines 'eggplants', courgettes 'zucchini', and Burger King 'Hungry Jacks'.

Turns out Hokey Pokey was an early 19th Century generic name for ice cream sold by street vendors (hence it's use in the title track of the album). Nowadays it's a flavour of ice cream, apparently.

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