Kenny Everett's"Nice Time"

Bang bump goes the beat
Of the drum in the street
The Nice Time Band's come to start off the treat

Punch a grandad up in the sky
Have tea on the Nice Time raft
Help the fat gentleman take off his tie
Help the fat lady eat her marmalade pie
Sit down and enjoy a Nice Laugh
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)

Look at the eyes of the Nice Time cat
Blinking gayly at the mayor
Bubbles fly from the top of his hat
Balloons float him out of his chair

Mrs Sefton leads the band
Aspadistra in her hand
Come on dearie pull up your skirt
Have a Nice Dance and grab hold of Bert

Ah look a remarkable treat
The Nice Band's back in our street
We'll all stride round to the nourishing beat
Of the Nice Band's men we'd love you to meet

Here all the spoons are all shiny and neat
And the musical saws are wailing a treat
Fun loving policemen the nuts are all sweet
Has the Nice Nutcrackers tapping their feet

Lots more names for time you (?)
Just enough to hear them complete

Floating high above the crowds
With your head up in a cloud
Levitation's as easy as pie
Come and hold hands with me in the sky

Goodbye goodbye goodbye
Goodbye goodbye goodbye
Goodbye goodbye goodbye

I have tried to transcribe the lyrics of "Nice Time", but still am unsure of some of them (hence the italics). Any suggestions are welcome).

Interesting to note that Kenny, being such a "Pepper head", either consciously or subconsciously borrows themes and words from his favourite album. He sings about a marching band that he'd love us to meet, and takes "marshmallow pies" and "marmalade skies" from "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and creates "marmalade pie".

My thanks to Bootlegzone poster "Doc" for finally uncovering the origins of this track in 2006, and for sourcing the 45 of it.

"Nice Time" was a Granada Television series in the UK in 1968 which Kenny Everett hosted. He also co-wrote the TV theme with John Birt, who was the producer of the show. The song was released as a single at the time, with the B-side being a song called "And Now For A Little Train Number".

Five years later, a Beatles bootleg LP by the name of "Abbey Road Revisited" came out - a typical hack job of the era, with the usual recycled items, outfakes and general mediocrity. But a big wedge of the selections on side one were new at the time and came from (mainly) radio broadcasts associated with Kenny Everett - a radio jingle by Paul set to the chords of "Hello Goodbye", a snatch of the song "Cottonfields" performed by John, and a complete multi-tracked demo for "Step Inside Love" performed by Paul (one of the few Beatle boot recordings not yet found in upgraded quality even after 35 years).

Two of the tracks on this section of the LP were passed off as genuine Beatles outtakes but were in fact the work of Kenny Everett. One was a short accapella version of "Mean Mr Mustard" (Everett attended the mixing session for this song and probably went away and performed his own version from memory), and the other was a song identified as "Bye Bye Bye", but was in fact a live television performance of "Nice Time", no doubt from the television show of the same name.

On the "Abbey Road Revisited" bootleg LP, the available tape recording of "Nice Time" (aka "Bye Bye Bye") was of such poor audio quality that some Beatles fans were perhaps for a while fooled into thinking that here was a genuine rare, lost song.

Here is the amateur recording (from a TV speaker) of the television performance of "Nice Time" as it appeared on "Abbey Road Revisited". We hear first some introductory dialogue featuring an unidentified female voice (possibly Germaine Greer) before the song begins. The already abysmal audio fidelity of this recording is further marred by a faulty mike cable, which continues to cut in and out intermittently throughout the song. Due to the Music Union ban on miming, the vocals are live, but the musical backing also appears to be quite different from the 45 version, suggesting that some or all of the band are live too. He fluffs one line near the end, singing about the aspadistra instead of having his head in the clouds.