Songs: I Am A Hipster

notes / gigs / releases

I like to ride around on a bike with fixed gears
I like to go to secret gigs and drink craft beer
Ask me and I'll own up
To enjoying an artisanal cronut
Instagram that flat white, mister
I am a hipster

I've got a ukelele
And a pop up shop in hackney
Selling jelly babies
To millionaires with acne
You can criticise my clothes and music
If you've never ever ever ever looked stupid
I've seen those Facebook pictures
I am a hipster

You say we've changed your high street, but when did you last go?
At least there's people in the pub now it's gone gastro
Before we rocked up you had got
Fourteen poundlands and a knocking shop
Now we've got a framer and a cocktail mixer
Thank God for hipsters

Mods and rockers, punks and goths - we're in a proud tradition
Of young people who just want to look a little bit different
What's that Grandpa, in your day?
There was nothing daft about an Acid Rave?
Well call the cops, you melon twister
You are a hipsters

Let he or she who never owned
A Reni hat cast the first stone
Emo brothers and sugar spun sisters
We are all hipsters

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

I wrote this song for a evening of short plays (well, let's be honest, a REVUE really) about the way that London changes and the arguments Old versus New that always goes on. It's partly based on the fact that my brother-in-law takes delight in hipsters as Just Young People Having Fun, and my OWN delight in the way this winds up miserable old sods. It was written on a ukelele, which was difficult as I know even LESS chords there than on guitar!

When we eventually put on the show we discovered that none of the actors could play ukelele, or even guitar really, so it was done as a sort of reading, which didn't work very well at all. I was away at the Edinburgh Fringe when rehearsals were going on, and the Director of the play tried to just DROP the song. I made the case for keeping it IN, but when I saw it I half wished I hadn't!