Men
This song is known to us through the printed score in the songbook, Bringing the News from Nowhere (1992). Leon states that it was written for a performer at the old Windmill Theatre, and in his 2023 book, Where Are The Elephants?, he noted, "When I was discovering how to write songs, I wrote a song called 'Men'," which confirms it to have been very early. (We note however that the printed song lyrics reference Rambo, a character in the famous 1980s films, so it must have been revisited at some point.)
The song is an amusing outline of the female singer's suitors, each of them inadequate in some respect. As such it can be read as a gender-reversed counterpart to the oldie, "The Bachelor's Complaint", but with more of the risqué humour of "A Vile Violation".
The song is an amusing outline of the female singer's suitors, each of them inadequate in some respect. As such it can be read as a gender-reversed counterpart to the oldie, "The Bachelor's Complaint", but with more of the risqué humour of "A Vile Violation".