Cammell Laird Social Club

Cammell Laird Social Club is the ninth album released by Birkenhead-based UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, in September 2002.^[2][3]

Cammell Laird Social Club
Studio album by Half Man Half Biscuit
Released	23 September 2002
Recorded	Frog Studios, Warrington[1]
Genre	Post-punk, indie rock
Length	41:35
Label	Probe Plus PROBE 52
Producer	Mark Walker (engineer)
Half Man Half Biscuit chronology
Editor's Recommendation (2001) Cammell Laird Social Club (2002) Saucy Haulage Ballads (2003)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]

Critical reception

• Stewart Mason, AllMusic: "Cammell Laird Social Club is proof that for all their supposed indolence, Half Man Half Biscuit remain one of the sharpest and most satisfying bands in the U.K. indie scene".^[2]

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Is the Light of an Oncoming Train)"	2:32
2.	"When the Evening Sun Goes Down"	3:32
3.	"San Antonio Foam Party"	3:25
4.	"Them's the Vagaries"	3:28
5.	"If I Had Possession over Pancake Day"	2:14
6.	"The Referee's Alphabet"	4:32
7.	"She's in Broadstairs"	3:38
8.	"Tyrolean Knockabout"	3:24
9.	"Breaking News"	3:07
10.	"27 Yards of Dental Floss"	2:36
11.	"Paradise Lost (You're the Reason Why)"	2:28
12.	"Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not"	6:23
13.	"Stavanger Töestub"	0:25

Notes

• The album title parodies those of the film and album Buena Vista Social Club, a 1999 project by Ry Cooder about a group of Cuban musicians
• Cammell Laird, formerly a major shipbuilder, is a company located in Birkenhead.
• Cammell Laird Social Club is a working men's club located in Rock Ferry, near Birkenhead.^[4]
• "The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Is the Light of an Oncoming Train)" is a near-quotation from the poem "Since 1939" by the American poet Robert Lowell: "If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an oncoming train".^[5][6]
• New Mills is a town in Derbyshire the refrain parodies Dillerger

Cokane in My Brain "Knife a fork a bottle and a cork that's the way we spell New York"

• San Antonio is a town in Ibiza, Spain known for its clubbing scene.
• A foam party is a social event in which participants dance to music on a floor covered in several feet of foam.
• "If I Had Possession over Pancake Day" parodies the song "If I Had Possession over Judgment Day" by bluesman Robert Johnson.
• The title "She's in Broadstairs" parodies that of the 1983 song by "She's in Parties" by Bauhaus.
• Broadstairs is a quaint seaside resort near Ramsgate in Kent, England.
• Tyrol is a region of Austria.
• Paradise Lost is an epic poem by John Milton, published 1667.
• The title "Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not" is a quotation from Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles;^[7] which is itself an adaptation of the Second Epistle of Peter at 2:3: "Their damnation slumbereth not".
• Stavanger is the fourth largest city in Norway.