Fergus he builds and builds, yet small is his erection. Fergus has a fine head of hair, when the wind’s in the right direction

Richard Thompson

Roughly five years ago, Richard Thompson wrote a Celtic folk ballad about an unscrupulous businessman and his shady dealings in Scotland.

It’s called Fergus Laing and, to say the least, is a little bit cheeky.

“Fergus he builds and builds, yet small is his erection. Fergus has a fine head of hair, when the wind’s in the right direction,” Thompson sings.

There was probably little doubt as to who Fergus Laing was inspired by, even if this rule-bending American businessman wasn’t president yet and the details about his controversial development of a golf course on environmentally sensitive lands were better known in the United Kingdom than North America.

But when Donald Trump took over the White House in 2016, Thompson thought the song might take on a new life.

“I continued to sing it a little bit as he rose to prominence in the political sphere,” says Thompson, in an interview from a tour stop in Wisconsin. “I very quickly realized that I could just not keep up. There was too much information every day. I’d have to write a new verse a day. I just had to stop singing that song because it was out of date immediately.”

A songwriter with a knack for sardonic humour and sharp storytelling, Thompson’s political output includes everything from 1991’s stinging Margaret Thatcher rebuke Mother Knows Best to 2007’s tormented Iraq-war anthem Dad’s Gonna Kill Me.

So it says something about the political atmospheres in both Thompson’s adopted country and his native England, which is currently engulfed in its own circus-like, Brexit-inspired chaos, that the songwriter feels unable to properly reflect them in song.

“The political situation in America and in Britain is so strange and so unprecedented in both countries, you have to be a very nimble songwriter to keep up,” says Thompson, who now lives in Los Angeles. “So far, I haven’t managed to. As much as I like writing political things and deflating political egos, I haven’t managed to keep up lately.”

LYRICS
Fergus Laing is a beast of a man
 He stitches up and fleeces
 He wants to manicure the world
 And see it off in pieces
 He likes to build his towers high
 He blocks the sun out from the sky
 In the penthouse the champagne's dry
 And slightly gassy
 Fergus Laing, he works so hard
 As busy as a bee is
 Fergus Laing has 17 friends
 All as dull as he is
 His 17 friends has 17 wives
 All the perfect shape and size
 They wag their tails and bat their eyes
 Just like Lassie
 Fergus he builds and builds
 Yet small is his erection
 Fergus has a fine head of hair
 When the wind's in the right direction
 Fergus Laing and his 17 friends
 They live inside a bubble
 There they withdraw and shut the door
 At any sign of trouble
 Should the peasants wail and vent
 And ask him where the money went
 He'll simply say, it's all been spent
 On being classy
 Fergus' buildings reach the sky
 Until you cannot see 'um
 He thinks the old stuff he pulls down
 Belongs in a museum
 His fits are famous on the scene
 The shortest fuse, so cruel, so mean
 But don't call him a drama queen
 Like Shirley Bassey
 Fergus Laing he flaunts the law
 But one day he'll be wired
 And as they drag him off to jail
 We'll all shout, "You're fired!"

Still, Thompson is nothing if not prolific. So it’s possible these songs may be pending. In any case, biting political commentary is just one of many colours Thompson has in his songwriting palette. Next month, New West Records will release Thompson’s score for Erik Nelson’s Second World War documentary The Cold Blue. While Thompson is no stranger to soundtrack work, fans might be surprised that it features a relative dearth of guitar. Instead, Thompson enlisted a small chamber orchestra featuring French horns, a string quartet, double bass, oboe, clarinet, harmonica and percussion to musically back Nelson’s film about the brave pilots of the Eighth Air Force.

Meanwhile, as of this week, Thompson is also busily working on songs for both an acoustic album and his next full-band release.

“I’ve got two piles of songs,” Thompson says. “We’ll see which one wins, which one is the next record.” [ . . . ]

Source CALGARY HERALD: Richard Thompson brings 50 years of music to Bella Concert Hall | Calgary Herald