About The Name

The blog’s name, Reasons To Be Cheerful, is taken from the song of the same name by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

IAN DURY was an English rock and roll singer, songwriter, and bandleader who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He lived with the effects of polio, which he contracted at the age of seven.[1]

[This did not prevent him from having several wives, four children, and a whole lot of fun in life. - Ed.]

Signing with the fledgling indie label Stiff in 1978, Dury developed a strange fusion of music-hall, punk rock and disco that brought him to stardom in his native England. Driven by a warped sense of humor and a pulsating beat, singles like “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,” “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” and “Reasons to Be Cheerful (Part 3)” became Top Ten hits in the U.K., yet Dury’s most distinctive qualities — his dry wit and wordplay, thick Cockney brogue, and fascination with music-hall — kept him from gaining popularity outside of England.[2]

Dury died of colorectal cancer in 2000.

Hear a clip of the song here:

Read the lyrics here:

If you really have some time on your hands, you might like this line-by-line explication and analysis of the lyrics here.

[1] Source: Wikipedia.

[2] Source: allmusic.com

Filed by kadmin on May 29th, 2007 under Uncategorized