Come all ye rounders if you want to hear the tale Of a tape recorder man He travelled far and wide through the dusty countryside The tape recorder man Collecting songs of love, collecting songs of blood Sometimes songs of evil men and sometimes songs of good And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne He said the age of the machine would make us all the same The tape recorder man And we should tape record the songs the old men sing The tape recorder man Because when the old were gone, thered be no more songs Just mechanical din And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne At a music festival he presented to the world some of the folk greats Then, with a condescending smile, he introduced us all to some electronic fakes Saying The old folks dont need gimmicks to make the music new But heres a group of college kids who apparently do And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne And he left the stage to seek some nerdy boffin geeks who sounded like the Pogues Singing like the Bee Gees, dancing like freaks, playing modular Moogs I met him in the dressing room at the end of the show I said you used to be my hero but tonight youve fallen low And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne I said tape recorder man damn your Memorex What about innovation, man, what about art and sex? He couldnt share my point of view, and he freely said so So me and the tape recorder man quickly came to blows I hit out at his shoulder where his tape recorder hung It slipped to the floor with a crash, the strap mustve been undone And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne It exploded like a bomb from the first world war And seven spools of folk recordings rolled across the floor A random burst of yodelling rubbed up against the heads That woozy crazy spool was like John Cage or Varese I cried Tape recorder man, this I wont forget This is folk music... concrete! And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne
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