YMMV / Henry Cow

• Anvilicious: Some songs come off to some people as this if you disagree with their Marxist, anti-capitalist outlooks.
• Epic Riff: The bass riff from "Teenbeat Reprise" as well as the piano riff from "Beautiful as the Moon", which is in 7/4 and 15/8 time and repeats over and over again.
• Funny Moments:
  • The band wasn't above poking fun at its own reputation as a highly intellectual group with a very serious attitude towards politics. After they merged with Slapp Happy, Cutler and Frith gave an interview in which they talked about the merger:
    Chris Cutler: I think their [Slapp Happy's] attitudes are in the process of changing.
    Fred Frith: Ven zey come back from Siberia zey will think very differently.
  • They were onstage once in Amsterdam when Frith realised there was a man behind him on stage, holding an axe. Henry Cow's roadies were staring fixedly at the man, thinking that if they moved, he might kill Frith, but if they didn't move, he also might kill Frith. At the end of the set, the man hadn't moved, and a very relieved Frith nevertheless asked him "What the f*** are you doing?" The man beamed and replied "I was protecting you!"
  • The band's demented cover version of Soft Machine's "We Did It Again", on the Hamburg disc of the boxed set: furiously chanting the title phrase over and over again while riffingly madly and making very silly noises.
  • The track 'Viva Pa Ubu', issued as a bonus track on Western Culture, is a setting of some verse by Alfred Jarry from his play Ubu Roi, and belies the Cow's reputation for being heavily serious, with the entire band singing/chanting/yelling some absolutely bonkers lyrics:
    Hit 'em! Go on hitting 'em! Hit 'em! Go on hitting 'em!
    LONG LIVE PERE UBU / OUR GREAT PHYNANCIER / TANG TANG TANG, TANG TANG TANG / TANG-TANG-TANG TA-TANG!
• Out of the Ghetto: Henry Cow forced this upon themselves by their habit of accepting invitations to play wherever, to whoever. As a result, they played a lot of festivals organised by the Italian Communist Party, and frequently found themselves playing to audiences of Italian peasants, with old ladies, children and even the occasional goat. Fred Frith observed that they never had the problem that other prog-rock bands had, of always playing to similar audiences of 19-year-old young men.
• Tear Jerker: Yes, they even managed to get one of these with their cover of "No More Songs" by Phil Ochs.

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