Long before many of you were listening to music (cough, cough) there was a British group called Small Faces. A concept album, “Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” was released in May of 1968, and became the number one album in the UK in less than a month. The whole album is extraordinary, side two featured a story, “Happiness Stan”, which was a mixture of music and narration by Stanley Unwin, a comic born in Pretoria, South Africa.
Image: bundesrepublikkino.blogspot.com
Professor Unwin—as he was often known—was a master of “Unwinese”, sometimes called gobbledygook, a language that at first hearing sounded like gibberish, but which was instead, soundly rooted in English.
I present you two links.
The first link is the good Professor’s intro to one of the songs, “The Hungry Intruder“, and includes the Small Faces song.
The second is a hand-made editing of his remarkable words from the album at Youtube. On this second piece you will notice a less than perfect recording, and the missing of some dialogue that had overrun the music.
In both cases I think you will find the words and voice of an amazing man. Professor Stanley Unwin.
UhW 
On Gibberish and Gobbledygook: on Uphill Writing’s Musical Notes:
This would be a ‘fantastical’ example of poetic interaction, I believe. It would be redundant, possibly, for someone to copy the lyrics, as it would all be ‘gobbledygook’ in any case, and if it appeals to any faculty, it would have to appeal to the heart, to the four humors, perhaps which was I believe used to characterize insanity up until about the 16th century and beyond. There will be more humor like this when we explore revue in later posts. Until then, try to understand the language. You don’t have to work hard at it. Indeed, that would be a mistake. Let the lyrics sing and then you won’t need a transcription.
Thanks for the link to Unwin, whom I did not know.
Alas I must confess to knowing Small Faces, very well. Are you calling me old?
Ricky,
This post is very interesting. I love when you tell about your personal experiences and lessons; and music and books forgotten in the past.
Thanks for writing,
M.
Could not understand how ‘Friday Fun’ could be related to this post. Can’t remember displaying this much anger even back in the 90’s. I’m amazed they didn’t ‘take him away’. Ah! the inconsistencies of life. And so it goes…