NEW BOOTS AND PANTIES!! by IAN DURY (1977, Stiff)

There will never be another Ian Dury. A unique mixture of Arthur Askey, Johnny Rotten and Derek & Clive. He was a true one-off that only Great Britain could have spawned with its proud history of vaudeville, civil-disobedience and potty language.

The album title refers to Dury's habits of buying only buying second hand clothes. The titular garments were the only one’s he insisted on buying new. The album cover shows him stood outside a lingerie shop on Vauxhall Bridge Road, just around the corner from Victoria Station. He’s accompanied by his son Baxter, who incidentally, is going to be tomorrows Album of the Day subject.

As opening lines go ...Panties has got a smutty classic. “I come awake with a gift for women kind / You’re still asleep but the gift don't seem to mind / Sliding down your body / touching your behind".

Direct, rude, silly and and funny Dury’s lyrics are a mixture working class observational wit, word play, poetry and character sketches. They've left a huge imprint of British pop. Listen to the words of ‘Billericay Dickie’, ‘Plaistow Patricia’ or ‘Clever Trevor’ and they could be characters from a Madness album or any Blur’s Britpop output (Modern Life, Parklife, Great Escape). Damon Albarn owes a great debt to Dury's lyricism but unlike Blur they never feel snide or voyeuristic.

My favourites moments have to be "Had a love affair with Nina. In the back of my Cortina. A seasoned-up hyena could not have been obscener” (‘Billericay Dickie’) and “You look so self possessed / I wont disturb your rest / It's lovely while your sleeping / but wide awake is best" ('Wake Up and Make Love With Me').

New Boots and Panties is a mixture of Pub-Rock, Punk, Funk, Jazz, New Wave and English Music Hall, all expertly executed against Dury's gutter mouth poetry. Exuberant and knockabout its the perfect accompaniment to eight pints of larger and a sweaty top-off / moobs-out mosh session, especially the shouty anthem par-excellance ‘Blockheads’.

The two standout tracks for me are the classic ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ and the tune with possibly the greatest bass line in rock history 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll'... Bow bow bow ba ba ba boooow... How that song was never a hit is incredible yet it’s tune we all know, and contains the phrase that Dury (allegedly) coined, now a staple of the English language.

If you’re thinking about sampling Dury before you buy, there’s a great place to do it. In a corner of beautiful Richmond Park in a spot favoured by Dury, Poet’s Corner, there’s a solar powered wooden bench where you can plug in your headphones listen to eight of his songs free. That’s if it’s not been vandalised.