In praise of The Right Honourable Shaun Ryder: The nation's greatest lyricist?

Round a mate's house over the weekend (where all writers steal their best ideas), we got onto Manchester and it's music. This is something that happens quite frequently during a drinking session at Susie's, as she lives spitting distance away from the Hacienda and The Boardwalk... or rather... two venues now posing as 'luxury living', notably full of deadbeats in linen trousers living off a borrowed nostalgia, gleaned through various round-up shows and what they found on YouTube on their lunch break.

Delving into Manchester's bands, we invariably ended up at the hem of Shaun Ryder. Now, most chats about Ryder involve various tales of debauchery and the scally things he got up to (did you hear the one about the exploding pigeons?), but everyone's been missing a trick. See, Shaun Ryder is one of the best lyricists this country has ever known. From summing up the whole of the baggy scene in one song to an accurate history of Nazi gold in one line, Shaun William Ryder is overlooked in favour of Mark E. Smith, because it wouldn't do to have more than one working class bard would it? Bollocks.

I imagine that if you have got this far, it's because you're either already in total agreement and waiting to nod along, or, more likely, are scowling and thinking 'Go on chump, prove it'.

Fac(t) is, in amongst the bug-eyed party anthems and booze phlegm rants, there's real pearls of wisdom in Ryder. Me and Susie (who sounds and looks like she's just stepped out of a Velvet Underground track about an industrial town in the Pennines... which is as high praise as I'm likely to give anyone without fucking them) both fizzed and enthused over one of the most overlooked lyrics in pop-history.

"The Pope he got the Nazis to clean up their messes. He exchanged the gold and paintings. He gave them new addresses."

Those aren't the lyrics of simpleton. No way. When you're singing along to a song, the meaning falls to the wayside. If it kinda sounds good, it doesn't matter if it means nuthin'. Jeez. Go read 'The Manual' by the KLF and think about "That's the way, a-ha a-ha, I like it, a-ha a-ha" and the complete nonsense of Tutti Frutti by Little Richard. However, Ryder manages to couple the goodtime nonsense with something smarter. You can go home, scratch the surface and... "I wrote for luck. They sent me you. I sent for juice. You give me poision." It's a song about betrayal, about getting back stabs. A-ha, a-ha.

In 'Kinky Afro', there's some of the most spot-on lyrics of real life ever written. Check the pathos in "son, I'm 30... I only went with your mother 'cause she's dirty and I don't have a decent bone in me... what you get is just what you see, yeah" There's a level of honest in that lyric that you won't see anywhere else. It's a resigned drunken confession. The reply? "Dad, you're shabby...  you're only here just out of habit." Dig that! It's a call of 'Sort yerself out! Stop existing and start living!' While everyone took their eye off the ball to concentrate on The Wild Life Of Drugs and Violence, Shaun Ryder was documenting life on the fringes, the stuff that the NME and Guardian forgot to mention.

And while the dozo-bozo will tell you that 'Fools Gold' or 'I Wanna Be Adored' is The Sound of Baggy Manchester, you send 'em on their way... even the dolt who claims that 'Step On' (a John Kongos cover really) is the Pride of Madchester is wrong. Look no further than 'Loose Fit'. That's the track that encapsulates Manchester, circa 1988.

"Go on move in it... Doesn't have to be legit... It's gotta be a loose... Don't need no skin-tights in my wardrobe today. Fold them all up and put them all away" If that lyric was about sharp suits and by a Mod band, people would still salivate over it like it was the perfect summary of the scene. As it's Shaun William Ryder, it's instantly dismissed as throwaway. While the other Manchester bands... and bands pretending to be from Manchester, postured and pouted, Ryder walked the streets, hustled and haggled and wrote about the DNA which runs through Manchester's pavements.

That DNA isn't based on Ian Curtis reading Mein Kampf, nor is it based on The Stone Roses art-school posing. It's not in the Farfisa of Clint Boon. Good as those bands are, they're not as Manc' as the lyrics of Shaun Ryder. While the dreamy boys of Manchester's indie-pop scene declared to be the resurrection and all that bunkum, Ryder cut straight to the chase with dry Northern justice in 'Kuff Dam'.

"You see that Jesus is a cunt and never helped you with a thing that you do or you done"

Watched The Royle Family and thrilled about what a real snapshot it is of working class Northern Life it is? Think again. The Royle Family was mawkish sentimentality compared to the super-real 'Grandbag's Funeral'. "Bring all the family out to the holiday, while we're all still around. Show you what the cats been doing and how he gets around... you can't wake him."

So next time you're thinking of talking about Madchester and childishly giggling about 'how pure the Es were' or pretending that you used to go to the Hacienda loads... or worse still... talking about being 'Mad for it', remember that while Manchester has become a Disneyland for indie fans, like Liverpool is Beatleworld, in the grooves, there's some serious wisdom. Don't dumb down. Get lost in the real and wonderful world of Shaun Ryder, the true bard of Manchester.

And the best bit?

Like all Best Mancunians, Shaun Ryder comes from Salford...