Ragman Rolls for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Clubs volume, and in Jamiesons Scottish Dictionary, s.v. Ragman. Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" defines "Ragman Roll" as follows: The name ragman roll survives in the colloquial rigmarole, a rambling, incoherent statement. Merriam Webster gives a very different account of the origin rigmarole and the term "Ragman Roll". The name of Ragman has been sometimes confined to the record of 1296. There is an account of this given in Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London.
What a Waste Roll". The song's verses list a number of things the song's narrator could have been, from a driver, poet, teacher or soldier to an inmate in a long-term institution and the ticket man at Fulham Broadway station before the chorus reveals that instead he chose to 'play the fool in a six-piece band' highlighting some of the pitfalls of this (loneliness specifically), before deciding that 'rock and roll don't mind'. The song was written following the break-up of Kilburn and the Highroads in a lull between the formation of Ian Dury & the Kilburns and was written with Rod Melvin