Songs: I'm Doing The Ironing

notes / gigs / releases

I don't want a medal
Instead I'll just go
In this room for an hour or three
Where I'll be preparing
What we'll both be wearing
For all of the forthcoming week

I'll flatten and crease
With the greatest of ease
As I surf through an ocean of steam
Your coats and your trousers,
My shirts and your blouses
Are grist to this ironing machine

No tributes, please
That's not what I do this for
A hero? No I don't want your applause

I'm just doing the ironing
A herculean task
With which I perservere
Every week of the year
Without being asked

Yes I'm doing the ironing
As a white CIS Man
And if the patriachy
Happen to disagree
They can kiss my ass

If you don't like it I suggest you go
Back to the twentieth century
While here in the future I'm steaming a suit for
A bird who works harder than me

And there's no denying
It's dead satisfying
To get all the seams in a line
Especially with your clothes
Cos it turns out all those
Have got loads more sections than mine

Yes I confess
I was staring at your chest
But my interest was not sleezy
I was wondering if those breast pockets
Are easy

I'm doing the ironing
Go tell it to the alt-right
Because this is
What a feminist
Doing ironing looks like

Yes I'm doing the ironing
It's not without it's rewards
You can do more than you think
While you get out the crimps
In a nice pair of cords

It's here I ingest
Game of Thrones, Walking Dead
Buffy, Fringe, the OA, DS9
Here I've listened to Posh
Every time that they've lost
And cheered Terry sent off on Five Live

You can't do all this when you take out the bins
Or ring up to sort out Council Tax
Can't listen to much when you're hoovering up
Or watch films when you're rinsing the bath

The spare sheets were clean
When they went in the the machine
What do you mean, you think I have a problem?
Surely the curtains had sharp corners when we got them?

I'm doing the ironing
Like a Knight on a Steed
Instead of armour, sweat pants
And replacing a lance
I'll be using Febreze

I'm doing the ironing
And yes I accept
It's a job that I do,
In full knowledge that you
Do pretty much all the rest

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

The GENESIS of this song was me suddenly thinking of the "Yes I confess I was staring at your chest" line and GIGGLING about it while out doing some shopping. It has happened to me on several occasions, that I've been inspecting pockets, and I AMUSED MYSELF with the idea of explaining in this way.

The rest of the song took a week or so to sort out, as I continued to AMUSE MYSELF with extra lines. I worried about how I'd put it all into a proper order but, once I sat down to do so, it turned out that I had just the right number of choruses covering just the right topics to make it all work. PHEW.

The song was written during my songwriting EXPLOSION of early 2017, when I went through my Notebook for half-written songs and ideas and ended up writing some new ones too, and it was the one I thought of as THE HIT. Whenever I do the first batch of songs AFTER finishing an album there's always one that is THE HIT (previously it's been "It Only Works Because You're Here", "The Lesson Of The Smiths" and "20 Things To Do Before You're 30" so I was VERY pleased when this one turned up, right on time!