Coats off for Britain
This song is a send-up of government posturing, and is introduced on That's Not the Way It's Got To Be by Leon reading out a pair of statements by the leaders of Labour and Conservative (over the top of one another, creating an incomprehensible "hugga mugga chugga lugga" moment), culminating in the announcement of a great new initiative: Coats off for Britain. As an encouragement from those on high for the workers to dig in and work harder in the national interest, it simultaneously contrasts the irrelevance of the words for the rich and well-to-do, with the worker - the one who is actually going to have to do the extra work. Performed in a jocular style, the song is engaging but has remained relatively obscure, only available on the original LP.
"The quotations that precede the song, contained in speeches by two prime ministers supposedly on different sides, are drawn from that great garbage heap of patriotic clichés that has sustained our political leaders in war and peace, slump, boom and crisis... Even the Archbishop of Canterbury joins the crusade, delivers stirring messages urging the national reconstruction. Only for him there's more to it than hard work. We need, he declared in one memorable Easter sermon, not only the will to work and the will to fight but also 'prayer, which draws on the endless resources of God.' Coats off for Britain! is clearly not enough. The slogan really should be - Go to Work On Your Knees!" - LR (sleevenotes to the US edition of That's Not the Way It's Got To Be, 1981)
Recordings
Version 1 (1975)