Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
There is almost nothing anyone can say to this song that compares with just listening to it. One of the few comedy songs that is just as much fun after multiple listens as it is the very first time, not least of all because it’s weirdly catchy despite not really being a song at all.
And, yes; that really is Eric Clapton on banjo.
This song is, of course, just a detournment of the more familiar British standard, “Rule Britannia,” but it’s all in the way the joke is told; the jazzy horns, the louche delivery of the vocals (The offhand “take a trip!” just kills me, every time) and the way that the whole thing just skewers the idea of “hip” Britain as a brand or a meme, decades before Britpop revived the notion entirely devoid of irony. There are many reasons to love the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, but I’m not sure any of them are stronger than this one.