4,000 Weeks' Holiday
| 4,000 Weeks' Holiday | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Ian Dury & The Music Students | ||||
| Released | 27 January 1984 | |||
| Recorded | 1983 | |||
| Genre | Disco, funk | |||
| Length | 37:40 | |||
| Label | Polydor | |||
| Producer | Adam Kidron | |||
| Ian Dury & The Music Students chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
4,000 Weeks' Holiday is a 1984 album by Ian Dury & The Music Students for Polydor Records, released on 27 January 1984.
Its title is a reference to the length of an average human lifespan (4000 weeks). In 1984 Ian Dury was an official face for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain and went so far as to shave a peace symbol into his hair, this can be seen on the cover to the album (and the "Ban the Bomb" Single). The symbol itself was created by the CND. The album's song credits and lyrics are hand written. Accompanying each song's information are strange catchphrases such as "when flies fly, flies fly behind flies", "a gaudy morning bodes a wet afternoon" and most bizarre of all "my, how we apples swim quoth the dogshit"
4,000 Weeks Holiday was not reissued on CD in the UK until 2013, but was released in that format in Japan in 2007.
If accounts by Dury himself and Music Student member Merlin Rhys-Jones (who would continue to work with Dury and co-write songs with him until his death) from Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll: The Life of Ian Dury are correct, it would appear that it was Polydor records who suggested and insisted on Dury working with young musicians. Contradictorily, Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song purports that Polydor had wanted The Blockheads to play on the album, with the group rejecting the idea after learning they wouldn't be paid due to Dury spending most of his advance on his previous solo effort Lord Upminster. Song By Song's account is corroborated by Norman Watt-Roy (bassist for the Blockheads). Both versions are questionable. (source?)
Chaz Jankel, Dury's primary songwriting partner, was busy with his solo career in America and with no Blockheads present, Dury turned to his old songwriting partner from his pub rock days Russell Hardy (and another Rod Melvin it would seem), and worked with a young American songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Michael McEvoy, who had been introduced to him by Blockheads and Kilburn and the High Roads member Davey Payne after McEvoy had played on the saxophonist's solo album for Stiff Records. Adam Kidron, who had produced Payne's album, had hired McEvoy as on a number of projects (including Orange Juice's debut album and Scritti Politti's Songs to Remember) which he produced before 4000 Weeks Holiday.
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