BIG SHOT
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You heard me right the first time
Name of bachelor Johnny Cool
Occupation, Big Shot
Occupation at the moment, just having fun
What a party that was
The drinks were loaded
I narrowed my eyes and poured a stiff Manhattan
Then I saw Hotsie, what a dame
A big, bountiful babe in the region of 48-23-38
One hell of a region
She had the hottest lips since Hiroshima
I had to stand back for fear of being burned
Whiskey wow, wow, I breathed
She was dressed as before the bed
In that kind of outfit
She could get rolled at night
And I don't mean on a crap table
It's kind of revealing, isn't it?
Revealing? It's positively risk
I like it, she said
"You're a man with a thousand Gs, right?"
"A thousand what?" I quipped
"G-men, girls, guns, guts"
"You're my type"
"Wrong, baby", I slapped her hard
"I'm a L man, strictly liquor, love and laughs"
She stared over my shoulder
"Play it cool, Johnny" Play it what? I flipped
"Listen, I fought my way up from tough East Side New York
Lead filled saps and sub-machine guns, like this"
She said, "Johnny, this is a deadly game
Have a few laughs and go home"
I shuddered, normally I pack a rod in pajamas
I carry nothing but scars from Normandy beach
I said, "Wrong, baby, you can't fool me"
She spat playfully, "I'm ahead of you, Johnny"
I studied the swell of her enormous boobs and said
"Baby, you're so far ahead it's beautiful"
"You, you are, you are eccentric, I like that"
"Electric Cheri, bounce off my rocket, tout comprehend?"
We spoke French fluently, our lips met again and again
"Yeah, yeah, yeah", I slobbered
Hotsie said, "You're slobbering all over the seat, kid"
I went home late, very late
What could I say to M
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's song Big Shot is a satirical tale of a man who considers himself a big shot because of his wealth and social status. The singer, Johnny Cool, is described as a bachelor who claims to be living the high life, just "having fun" and enjoying his status. He attends a party where he drinks heavily and meets a woman named Hotsie, who is curvaceous and sensual. They end up speaking French fluently and kissing repeatedly.
The lyrics are full of ironic humor and satire, poking fun at the materialistic and superficial values of those who consider themselves the "big shots" in society. The singer's exaggerated sense of self-importance is contrasted with his lack of substance and his inability to connect with others on a meaningful level. His encounters with Hotsie, as well as his reference to his scars from Normandy beach, show that he is looking for more than just superficial thrills but is unsure of how to find it in his shallow and self-absorbed world.
The lyrics are also full of puns and witty wordplay, such as the reference to Hotsie's "region" and her "hot lips since Hiroshima". These clever twists on language add to the humor and satire of the song, making it a parody of the "big shot" lifestyle.
Line by Line Meaning
I am the Big Shot
I am a person of great importance and influence
You heard me right the first time
I said what I meant and I meant what I said
Name of bachelor Johnny Cool
My name is Johnny Cool and I am currently unmarried
Occupation, Big Shot
My occupation is being a person of great importance and influence
Occupation at the moment, just having fun
I am currently not engaged in any official occupation, but rather just enjoying myself
What a party that was
That was an amazing party
The drinks were loaded
The alcoholic beverages were quite potent
And so were the dolls
And so were the attractive women in attendance
I narrowed my eyes and poured a stiff Manhattan
I squinted my eyes and made myself a powerful cocktail called a Manhattan
Then I saw Hotsie, what a dame
Then I saw Hotsie, what an attractive woman
A big, bountiful babe in the region of 48-23-38
A curvaceous woman with measurements of 48-23-38
One hell of a region
Quite an impressive body shape
She had the hottest lips since Hiroshima
She had extremely attractive lips
I had to stand back for fear of being burned
I had to step back because she was so attractive
Whiskey wow, wow, I breathed
I was impressed by the quality of my drink
She was dressed as before the bed
She was dressed in a revealing outfit, perhaps meant for the bedroom
In that kind of outfit
Wearing such a revealing outfit
She could get rolled at night
She could become a target for theft or robbery at night
And I don't mean on a crap table
And I don't mean as in a gambling game
Revealing? It's positively risk
Her revealing outfit is quite risky
I like it, she said
She likes her revealing outfit
"You're a man with a thousand Gs, right?"
You are a man with a lot of money, girls, guns, and courage
"A thousand what?" I quipped
"A thousand what?" I asked sarcastically
"G-men, girls, guns, guts"
"Government agents, attractive women, firearms, and bravery"
"You're my type"
"You are the kind of man I am attracted to"
"Wrong, baby", I slapped her hard
"You are mistaken," I said before slapping her quite firmly
"I'm a L man, strictly liquor, love and laughs"
"I am a man who values alcohol, romance, and humor over money and violence"
She stared over my shoulder
She looked past me with a gaze that suggested she was deep in thought
"Play it cool, Johnny"
"Stay calm and collected, Johnny"
Play it what? I flipped
I was confused and possibly frustrated
"Listen, I fought my way up from tough East Side New York
"I come from a difficult upbringing in the rough East Side of New York City
Lead filled saps and sub-machine guns, like this"
Weapons such as lead-filled clubs and submachine guns
"Johnny, this is a deadly game
"This is a dangerous situation, Johnny
Have a few laughs and go home"
Laugh a little and then leave this situation safely
I shuddered, normally I pack a rod in pajamas
I was uncomfortable, as I typically keep a gun hidden in my pajamas for protection
I carry nothing but scars from Normandy beach
I carry only physical scars from my experiences in the Normandy Invasion during World War II
"Wrong, baby, you can't fool me"
"You are mistaken again," I replied
She spat playfully, "I'm ahead of you, Johnny"
She said teasingly that she was smarter than I was
I studied the swell of her enormous boobs and said
I looked at her large and round breasts and spoke
"Baby, you're so far ahead it's beautiful"
"You are so much smarter or more capable than I am, it's quite impressive"
"You, you are, you are eccentric, I like that"
"You are unconventional and interesting, I am attracted to that"
"Electric Cheri, bounce off my rocket, tout comprehend?"
"Electric Cheri, ride on my momentum, do you understand?"
We spoke French fluently, our lips met again and again
We were very skilled at speaking French and kissed each other repeatedly
"Yeah, yeah, yeah", I slobbered
"Yes, yes, yes," I said in a drunken and possibly sloppy manner
Hotsie said, "You're slobbering all over the seat, kid"
Hotsie joked that I was drooling on the furniture
I went home late, very late
I returned to my residence very late at night
What could I say to M?
What could I say to my partner or spouse?
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Tom Reid
Illumi Notme I'm happy that you liked my parenthetical joke. I like the pun in your name! Since you took the time to reply, I'll post some memories of time I spent with Neil Innes. I wrote this the day I heard that he had died and, later, posted it on a couple of the Neil Innes/Bonzo Dog Band fan web sites. I hope you enjoy it and thanks again for your kind reply:
I loved the Bonzo Dog Band and saw them once, at the Fillmore East in NYC, opening for Spirit and the Kinks (whom I was actually there to see) in 1969. I was way up in the balcony, but still remember the delightful chaos, like when one of them said “Here’s a song from a rock opera that seems to be quite big these days” and the band started the intro chords to “Pinball Wizard.” Then Viv Stanshall started walking up towards the microphone pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind, arms outstretched in front of him. He crashed into the mic, knocked it down, fell down himself, the song stumbled to a halt and that was it for “Pinball Wizard.”
I played the Bonzos’ records constantly in college, but would never have imagined I would become friends with one of them. They were legendary and almost seemed like they came, not just from another country, but from another time and even another planet (perhaps one located in Galaxy Five).
I did see Roger Spear doing his solo act once, in the winter of 1970-1971. He was his usual manic gleeful self, running around on stage while singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles” as bubble poured out of the top of the heads of one of his robots. Afterwards, I thanked him for the show and talked to him for a few minutes. He was friendly enough, if mainly focused on packing up his gear (I don’t think he had too much of a road crew for his one-man act). I remember asking him what he thought of the Who (I’ve always been obsessed with him and still play bass these days in a Who tribute band). I guess I wanted him to comment on their music, but all he could talk about was how impressed he was that they had stayed together for so long despite their differences. I guess that at that time, not long after the Bonzos themselves had broken up, Roger thought of the Who’s having stayed together as their biggest achievement.
Then, in the mid-1970s, I wrote an article on Grimms for “The Trouser Press” (issue #17) and, in doing so, corresponded with, then later met, Neil. Over the years, I met up with him perhaps a half dozen times. Here are a few memories of him:
From my first letter to him, in which he answered questions for my article with brief but helpful answers:
Q: How did Grimms come about?
A: Like most things, by a combination of luck and chance.
Q: I really enjoy your bass player, Dennis Cowan. How is he?
A: Sadly, Dennis died last year.
Q: Do you have any philosophy of life?
A: It’s a tough world. A man’s lucky to come out of it alive.
Later, I told him that, in addition to Neil’s succinct answers to my questions about Grimms, Roger McGough had sent me a six-page letter, Neil laughed and said, “Yes, he would do that!”
A few quotations from Neil that I remember from my first interview with him, in NYC in 1976: “I seem to be stuck in the rut of parody . . . I’m hopeful about Jimmy Carter . . . I have a real ambivalence about rock and roll . . . Do you know the sculptor David Smith? . . . (a waiter drops a tray) My contact lens!”
In a later conversation, talking about Michael Palin: “He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met” (of course, many of us would apply the same compliment to Neil).
Neil tried to get me a ticket to the episode of SNL for which he was the musical guest. Around Thursday of that week, we talked on the phone and he said the whole experience of being on the upcoming show was absolutely crazy. He apologized for not having enough pull to get me an actual ticket, but arranged for me to sit in an upstairs viewing room with comfy chairs to watch the show on big screen TVs, a room seemingly set aside for people who were almost well connected enough but not quite. There were only about eight of us - I think a friend of British musician Alan Price was there, too.
After the show, I walked onto the stage and passed by Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, still slow dancing to the music well after the show had ended, and met Neil and the woman who played Queen Elizabeth. I made Neil and Eric Idle laugh by saying “God Save You” to the Queen as she walked past me. Mostly, of course, Neil made me laugh rather than the other way around, but he had that quality of seeming to enjoy and be interested in everything you said.
For example, later, talking about his song “Shangri-La,” which he had performed on SNL dressed as a flower on a set full of colorful, happy bright things (sadly, his performance didn’t survive the cut to any condensed version of the SNL episode I’ve seen, although “Cheese and Onions” did), I asked Neil whether he had ever heard the Kinks’ version of ”Shangri-La.” He hadn’t, but seemed fascinated and asked whether Ray had used the same concept. We discussed the different levels of irony the two songs used to develop the same basic metaphor.
Hearing that I was beginning a career as a videographer, he had me do some filming of one of his trips to NYC as a kind of home movie he could take back to England. One thing he did, for example, was buy a Charlies Angels T-Shirt for one of his young sons. I asked him if I could keep a copy of the video. “Yes, but let’s just keep this to ourselves, o.k.?”
Similarly, when he gave me his phone number one time, he said “Make sure not to share this with any loonies!”
I once praised “Song for Yvonne,” saying it was a lovely song. “She’s a lovely woman,” he said.
We talked once about how sad he felt about John Lennon’s death and how it led him, for quite a while, to stop playing any Beatles or Rutles songs. I think he said that when he finally did resume playing Beatles songs and/or parodies, the first one he played in public was “Imagine.”
He laughingly praised Roger Spear as someone who absolutely never cared what any audience would ever think but just wanted to play the music he loved, mainly songs from before 1920.
In “Spontaneous,” his parody of Frank Sinatra, there’s a verse that I had always heard as:
“You’re so spontaneous/you knock me flat
You pull those little white rabbits out/of my top hat
You’re so spontaneous/a brack - a da bra
Spontaneous/That’s what you are!”
I never understand what “a brack (pause) a da bra” meant, so one day I asked him. Without making me feel stupid, he kindly explained that this was the cool, syncopated way he envisioned that Frank Sinatra would sing “abracadabra!”
When I told him that my sister was a classically-trained pianist whose biggest influences were Beethoven, Stravinsky and him, Neil was touched and came with me to her apartment in NYC. We jammed a little and I played him a video of one of my bands, the Ironics, doing a song. A few seconds after it started, almost under his breath, in a tone of wonder and surprise, he said, “Beautiful Zelda!” He said he hadn’t thought of that song in years. Then my sister played him, on her piano, the instrumental “Twyfords Vitromant” that he had played on a Grimms album. He told her she played it better than he did – and seemed quite sincere – but she and I were astonished, when, after he got back home to England, he sent her the sheet music for it – not a copy, but his original sheet music!
I only saw him twice in this century, but we communicated through email, too. He always asked after “my lovely wife” and my sister although he sometimes confused their names, but that’s o.k. Whether in person or on the internet, each time I had any contact with him, he seemed as friendly, warm, considerate, politically progressive and kind as ever. I’m sure most of the news stories will stress his sense of humor, which is obviously what first attracted so many of us to the Bonzo Dog Band and the Rutles, but I will remember, as much or more, what a wonderful human being he was.
P.S. – Thanks for reading this. I love hearing from other Neil Innes and Bonzo Dog Band fans and friends with their own memories of Neil.
Tom Reid
Melrose, Massachusetts
tom.reid@comcast.net
andrew james Bunting
Lyrics.
You heard me right the first time, name of bachelor, Johnny Cool.
Occupation: big shot. Occupation at the moment: just having fun.
What a party that was, the drinks were loaded and so were the dolls.
I narrowed my eyes and poured a stiff Manhattan, then I saw... Hotsy.
What a dame, a big bountiful babe, in the region of 48-23-38. One hell of a region.
She had the hottest lips since Hiroshima, I had to stand back for fear of being burned.
"Whisky-wow-wow", I breathed; she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.
In that kind of outfit, she could get rolled at night...
And I don't mean on a crap table.
"It's kind of revealing, isn't it?"
"Revealing? It's positively risqué, I like it."
She said, "You're the man of a thousand G's, right?"
"A thousand what?", I quipped,
"Why, G-man, girls, guns, guts... You're my type"
"Wrong, baby!", I slapped her hard, "I'm an L-man. Strictly liquor, love and laughs"
She stared over my shoulder. "Play it cool, Johnny."
"Play it what?", I flipped. "Listen, I fought my way up from tough East-Side New York. Lead-filled socks and sub-machine guns. Like this!"
She said, "Johnny this is a deadly game, have a few laughs and go home."
I shuddered. Normally I pack a rod; in pyjamas I carry nothing but scars from Normandy Beach.
I said, "Wrong, baby, you can't fool me."
She spat playfully. "I'm ahead of you, Johnny."
I studied the swell of her enormous boobs and said,
"Baby, you're so far ahead it's beautiful!"
"You, you are, you're eccentric, I like that."
"Electric, Cherie, bugged off my rocker, tu comprends?" We spoke French fluently.
Our lips met again and again, "Yeah yeah yeah," I slobbered.
Hotsy said, "You're slobbering all over the seat, kid."
I went home, late. Very late.
What could I say to my wife? "Darling, I've been beaten up again"?
Let's face it, she's credulous as hell.
A punk stopped me on the street. He said, "You got a light, mac?"
I said, "No, but I've got a dark brown overcoat."
Tom Reid
Great to hear from so many Bonzos fans. I saw them once at Fillmore East (the Bonzos, not the fans). At one point, they started the chords to 'Pinball Wizard' but as Viv approached the mic to start singing, he bumped into it, knocked it down, and couldn't find it - because, after all, he was deaf, dumb and blind . . . at least I think that was the joke, as seen from the balcony and remembered 44 years later! Also, I was briefly a rock journalist and met Neil several times - he's a great guy.
Tom Reid
Illumi Notme I'm happy that you liked my parenthetical joke. I like the pun in your name! Since you took the time to reply, I'll post some memories of time I spent with Neil Innes. I wrote this the day I heard that he had died and, later, posted it on a couple of the Neil Innes/Bonzo Dog Band fan web sites. I hope you enjoy it and thanks again for your kind reply:
I loved the Bonzo Dog Band and saw them once, at the Fillmore East in NYC, opening for Spirit and the Kinks (whom I was actually there to see) in 1969. I was way up in the balcony, but still remember the delightful chaos, like when one of them said “Here’s a song from a rock opera that seems to be quite big these days” and the band started the intro chords to “Pinball Wizard.” Then Viv Stanshall started walking up towards the microphone pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind, arms outstretched in front of him. He crashed into the mic, knocked it down, fell down himself, the song stumbled to a halt and that was it for “Pinball Wizard.”
I played the Bonzos’ records constantly in college, but would never have imagined I would become friends with one of them. They were legendary and almost seemed like they came, not just from another country, but from another time and even another planet (perhaps one located in Galaxy Five).
I did see Roger Spear doing his solo act once, in the winter of 1970-1971. He was his usual manic gleeful self, running around on stage while singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles” as bubble poured out of the top of the heads of one of his robots. Afterwards, I thanked him for the show and talked to him for a few minutes. He was friendly enough, if mainly focused on packing up his gear (I don’t think he had too much of a road crew for his one-man act). I remember asking him what he thought of the Who (I’ve always been obsessed with him and still play bass these days in a Who tribute band). I guess I wanted him to comment on their music, but all he could talk about was how impressed he was that they had stayed together for so long despite their differences. I guess that at that time, not long after the Bonzos themselves had broken up, Roger thought of the Who’s having stayed together as their biggest achievement.
Then, in the mid-1970s, I wrote an article on Grimms for “The Trouser Press” (issue #17) and, in doing so, corresponded with, then later met, Neil. Over the years, I met up with him perhaps a half dozen times. Here are a few memories of him:
From my first letter to him, in which he answered questions for my article with brief but helpful answers:
Q: How did Grimms come about?
A: Like most things, by a combination of luck and chance.
Q: I really enjoy your bass player, Dennis Cowan. How is he?
A: Sadly, Dennis died last year.
Q: Do you have any philosophy of life?
A: It’s a tough world. A man’s lucky to come out of it alive.
Later, I told him that, in addition to Neil’s succinct answers to my questions about Grimms, Roger McGough had sent me a six-page letter, Neil laughed and said, “Yes, he would do that!”
A few quotations from Neil that I remember from my first interview with him, in NYC in 1976: “I seem to be stuck in the rut of parody . . . I’m hopeful about Jimmy Carter . . . I have a real ambivalence about rock and roll . . . Do you know the sculptor David Smith? . . . (a waiter drops a tray) My contact lens!”
In a later conversation, talking about Michael Palin: “He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met” (of course, many of us would apply the same compliment to Neil).
Neil tried to get me a ticket to the episode of SNL for which he was the musical guest. Around Thursday of that week, we talked on the phone and he said the whole experience of being on the upcoming show was absolutely crazy. He apologized for not having enough pull to get me an actual ticket, but arranged for me to sit in an upstairs viewing room with comfy chairs to watch the show on big screen TVs, a room seemingly set aside for people who were almost well connected enough but not quite. There were only about eight of us - I think a friend of British musician Alan Price was there, too.
After the show, I walked onto the stage and passed by Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, still slow dancing to the music well after the show had ended, and met Neil and the woman who played Queen Elizabeth. I made Neil and Eric Idle laugh by saying “God Save You” to the Queen as she walked past me. Mostly, of course, Neil made me laugh rather than the other way around, but he had that quality of seeming to enjoy and be interested in everything you said.
For example, later, talking about his song “Shangri-La,” which he had performed on SNL dressed as a flower on a set full of colorful, happy bright things (sadly, his performance didn’t survive the cut to any condensed version of the SNL episode I’ve seen, although “Cheese and Onions” did), I asked Neil whether he had ever heard the Kinks’ version of ”Shangri-La.” He hadn’t, but seemed fascinated and asked whether Ray had used the same concept. We discussed the different levels of irony the two songs used to develop the same basic metaphor.
Hearing that I was beginning a career as a videographer, he had me do some filming of one of his trips to NYC as a kind of home movie he could take back to England. One thing he did, for example, was buy a Charlies Angels T-Shirt for one of his young sons. I asked him if I could keep a copy of the video. “Yes, but let’s just keep this to ourselves, o.k.?”
Similarly, when he gave me his phone number one time, he said “Make sure not to share this with any loonies!”
I once praised “Song for Yvonne,” saying it was a lovely song. “She’s a lovely woman,” he said.
We talked once about how sad he felt about John Lennon’s death and how it led him, for quite a while, to stop playing any Beatles or Rutles songs. I think he said that when he finally did resume playing Beatles songs and/or parodies, the first one he played in public was “Imagine.”
He laughingly praised Roger Spear as someone who absolutely never cared what any audience would ever think but just wanted to play the music he loved, mainly songs from before 1920.
In “Spontaneous,” his parody of Frank Sinatra, there’s a verse that I had always heard as:
“You’re so spontaneous/you knock me flat
You pull those little white rabbits out/of my top hat
You’re so spontaneous/a brack - a da bra
Spontaneous/That’s what you are!”
I never understand what “a brack (pause) a da bra” meant, so one day I asked him. Without making me feel stupid, he kindly explained that this was the cool, syncopated way he envisioned that Frank Sinatra would sing “abracadabra!”
When I told him that my sister was a classically-trained pianist whose biggest influences were Beethoven, Stravinsky and him, Neil was touched and came with me to her apartment in NYC. We jammed a little and I played him a video of one of my bands, the Ironics, doing a song. A few seconds after it started, almost under his breath, in a tone of wonder and surprise, he said, “Beautiful Zelda!” He said he hadn’t thought of that song in years. Then my sister played him, on her piano, the instrumental “Twyfords Vitromant” that he had played on a Grimms album. He told her she played it better than he did – and seemed quite sincere – but she and I were astonished, when, after he got back home to England, he sent her the sheet music for it – not a copy, but his original sheet music!
I only saw him twice in this century, but we communicated through email, too. He always asked after “my lovely wife” and my sister although he sometimes confused their names, but that’s o.k. Whether in person or on the internet, each time I had any contact with him, he seemed as friendly, warm, considerate, politically progressive and kind as ever. I’m sure most of the news stories will stress his sense of humor, which is obviously what first attracted so many of us to the Bonzo Dog Band and the Rutles, but I will remember, as much or more, what a wonderful human being he was.
P.S. – Thanks for reading this. I love hearing from other Neil Innes and Bonzo Dog Band fans and friends with their own memories of Neil.
Tom Reid
Melrose, Massachusetts
tom.reid@comcast.net
El Chaffinch
Incredibly underrated
Paul Jendryk
They were a very talented band, I've got a bunch of their cd's.
Colonel Blimp
Vivian - a national treasure.
Jubal Johnson
Thanks for the history lesson David...in those days there was little or no press available about such fine details in pop culture in the States, we only really new what our records stores sold us and any liner notes the LP's contained. Rolling Stone magazine had just gone national in 1968 when that album came out.
Paul of the North
"No, but I've got a dark brown overcoat."
Brilliant. Loved these guys back in the day, they still come across as beautifully as they did back then.
Nell Sun
Dark brown overcoat = soil.
Mac / Macca = buried.
dave idmarx
@Nell Sun Not quite, Niles. In England, a "mac"is a waterproof coat, so the guy saying "you got a light, Mac", rather than being taken as intended (a light for his cigarette) was instead taken as asking if he owned a light colored waterproof coat, hence the reply.
jjll52
@dave idmarx For me as a German fan of the Bonzos it took about 30 years to understand this (corny) joke. Thanks also to Macca ("He never wears a mac in the pouring rain - very strange"). Interesting for me too: the meaning of "punk" before the 70s...