'Subterranean Homesick Blues' On Juke Box Jury Poem by Greg Freeman

BBC trying to get with the Sixties.
After it was played
compere David Jacobs
repeated the title in his
suave Light Programme voice
and only just the hint of a sneer.

The panel - people like
Eartha Kitt and Pete Murray -
looked at each other, trying
not to laugh. The last thing
they wanted was to seem square.
They had got the Beatles

and those other long-haired groups.
But this jangling clattering
concoction of words, like a box
of spanners being shaken?
This was too much, would never
catch on. Jacobs pressed his buzzer.

It reached number nine.
And I've remembered
something else; a character
called Mr Jones was there.