There is a song on my 1997 album, King of the Ukulele, which always seemed a slightly unusual fit: while the style of Taking My Oyster for Walkies Listen on youtube sits well with the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s songs on the rest of the album, the lyrics on this track are, let’s say, “quirky”. Which is the reason people often assume I wrote it.
But I didn’t write it, Bill Oddie did.
Bill Oddie died on July 25, 2026 and, for the past 4 decades, he has been best known as a TV presenter of nature and bird watching shows such as Springwatch as well as being an activist for the protection of all kinds of wildlife. His enthusiasm for bird watching began as a boyhood escape which he credited to his mother having schizophrenia. This was also his explanation for his periodic bouts of severe depression throughout his life. He was born in Rochdale in northern England and eventually read English at Cambridge University where he began writing comedy with the likes of John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle (who all later formed Monty Python’s Flying Circus).
For the generation that came of age in the 1970s, Bill Oddie was the madcap and rebellious bearded character in The Goodies – alongside his fellow co-writers and performers: Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor who he also met at Cambridge,.
The popularity of The Goodies cannot be overstated. As kids we lapped up every episode, enjoying the visual gags, zany humour and hilarious slapstick. They sometimes used comedy to take on serious issues such as apartheid and pollution and are also fondly remembered for making fun of current movie genres, with titles like: Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms, Kitten Kong and Saturday Night Grease.
Interestingly the BBC has never shown repeats of The Goodies. After they cancelled the show due to lack of budget (having spent it all on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) The Goodies moved briefly to ITV where they got cancelled again after a 6-part series and a Christmas special (also due to a lack of budget – these shows were more expensive than they appeared.) It is believed that the BBC has held a long-term grudge over their move to ITV and permanently black-listed them. How very British. I find it remarkable that all of us who vividly remember The Goodies shows have all managed to do so from single viewings only.
With Oddie’s death the BBC has been broadcasting interviews with people that knew him and, listening to Goodies co-writer, Graeme Garden, I learned that out of all his comedy work – which is substantial – Bill was the most proud of his songs. Hearing this has in turn made me very proud of my 17-year-old-self for recognising Bill Oddie’s musical talent – which at the time went by relatively unnoticed. True, his song The Funky Gibbon rose to number 4 in the 1975 UK pop charts and even troubled the American Billboard chart at number 79 after being played on the Dr. Demento radio show. But I think it’s also true to say that his songs were chiefly regarded as passing comedic amusements rather than for having any musical merit.
Aged 17 I bought The Goodies Greatest Hits vinyl album from a record store bargain-bin. I listened to that album over and over again without ever mentioning it to my friends. At that teenage time, when we were all dividing and segregating ourselves into tribes according to our musical tastes, it would have been uncool to admit to liking what was by then considered a borderline kids’ record. But I listened to it alone in my room because I just liked it without really thinking why.
Bill Oddie was a master of the pastiche song: he wrote original tunes and lyrics in the style of pre-existing songs. There was no single defining genre but many varied styles: Rock & Roll, Pop, Disco, Doo-Wop, Reggae, French and of course the 1930’s Noel Coward-esque stylings heard in Taking My Oyster for Walkies. I once read that, although he played several instruments, including saxophone and piano, he did his song-writing by singing into a tape recorder and then handing the tape to an arranger who, with Oddie’s assistance, turned it into an arrangement for musicians to play.
And the musicians were top-flight. Not famous but absolutely some of the finest session players to be found in the UK at that time. I now realise that it was the high quality of the music as much as the comedy that had me returning repeatedly to that album.
I’m pretty sure I have not listened to The Goodies’ version of Taking My Oyster for Walkies since the 1990s and, hearing it now, I am both delighted and astounded at the quality of the musicianship on what is, and was then, a virtually unknown novelty track Listen on Youtube
If you want to hear Bill Oddie sing, and are familiar with Joe Cocker’s With a Little Help From My Friends, you will probably get a kick out of Oddie’s performance of On Ilkla Moor Baht’at. This was one of the all-time favourite tracks of legendary British DJ John Peel. Listen to it here It’s a bit of brilliantly executed silliness.
This has been my tribute to the work of the famous comedian, musician, artist, scientist and general polymath Bill Oddie – but also a small tribute to my 17-year-old self who, without realising it, appreciated more about music than he knew and followed the threads of his own instincts wherever they might lead him. Eventually to the ukulele!