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Evacuation Song On Jukeboxes In Irish Pubs Cira 80s

OneWingedBird

OneWingedBird

Beloved of Ra
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I got reminded about this U/L fron the supermarket/train code video I dropped in Good Stuff Online and figured it could do with it's own thread... I know it's come up here in passing before but I'm going way back and don't recall it being explored.

The story is that Irish pubs in the UK cira 80s had to have a certain record on the Jukebox, and the only time it was played was as a coded warning to evacuate ahead of the pub being bombed.

My first ever job aged 14 was washing glasses in an Irish nighclub in West Park in Leeds (older Leeds bods may remember the Old Bank), if the story was true and applied to clubs too, I never heard of it, though I could tell you an awful lot of songs that it wasn't.

If true, I can't help thinking it would have had to be something well obscure that would be unlikely to get put on by accident, though there did tend to be stuff on the Jukebox that wasn't exactly party music eg The Old Rugged Cross, actually I was a bit of a bugger for sticking on The Green Fields of France around 1am. :oops:

Anyone else heard this story or have anything to add?
 
Hadn't heard of it before but it's a good story.

It'd have to be a song everyone knew but was unlikely to put on. Tricky.
 
What is 'Cira'?
 
Not what but who? She's got a lorra lorra love, you know.
 
Interesting as vaguely plausible in a similar category to recognised codewords and friendly tip offs (far more myth than reality but given widespread credence)..

escargot1 said:
Hadn't heard of it before but it's a good story.

It'd have to be a song everyone knew but was unlikely to put on. Tricky.
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And yet the 80s is too early for these prime candidates:

(Everything I Do) I Do It For You by Bryan Adams

Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet
 
Makes no sense to me. To set up the code, you'd presumably have to have reasonably close connections within the establishment concerned. So it would likely be sympathetic to whichever particular position the putative bombers took vis-a-vis Irish politics. So it would seem a pretty unlikely target for those bombers' bombs in the first place.

Yes, this might then make it a target for bombers who took countervailing positions, but then how would they get their code in place beforehand? Or would the punters have to remember a top ten of never-usually-played tracks, depending on the organisation involved? That could be a challenge in itself at 10.30 on a Friday night, let alone when you've dropped a quid in with only six records in mind, and you've another five selections to make...
 
I hadn't heard the jukebox / song-code version, but on a related note ...

Two acquaintances who served in the US Navy (Atlantic / European region) in the 1970's (quite separately from each other) told me they'd spent time in Ireland / Northern Ireland in the course of their service. One might well have been stationed for a while at the USN communications base at Londonderry.

Both claimed they'd been formally instructed to immediately evacuate any public place if they heard someone call out, "Any Americans in here?"
 
Makes no sense to me. To set up the code, you'd presumably have to have reasonably close connections within the establishment concerned.
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It wouldn't have to get all complicated if it was one of those things that 'everyone knows' eg everyone knows a red light in a window means prostitution, or pamphas grass in the garden flags up a house with swingers.
 
OneWingedBird said:
It wouldn't have to get all complicated if it was one of those things that 'everyone knows' eg everyone knows a red light in a window means prostitution, or pamphas grass in the garden flags up a house with swingers.
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Shit .. my parents had pampas grass in our back garden .. and it was in the 70's .. I look like my Dad though so I'll let that go ..

pampas.jpg
 
I don't know about the jukebox thing but when I was about 8 we moved into a house with two massive pampas grass in the front garden. Almost the very first thing my parents did was to kill it off with some extremely strong weedkiller and once it was dead and dry, burnt it in an enormous conflagration the magnitude of which I had never seen before nor haven't since. I wonder now if they were concerned about the possibility of friendly neighbours knocking at the door with a bottle of wine in their hands and a seedy glint in their eye?
 
Spudrick68 said:
In a nightclub in Lancaster when ever they played The Passenger by Iggy Pop we knew it was time to bugger off home.
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What about when they played Nightclubbing?
 
Spudrick68 said:
In a nightclub in Lancaster when ever they played The Passenger by Iggy Pop we knew it was time to bugger off home.
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A pub I used to frequent would play 'Time' by Tom Waits from his album Rain Dogs when they felt the need to empty the place. I quite like Tom Waits so it didn't work on me.

I once read that the best album to play when you want all of those annoying party guests to leave your premises is 'Piper At The Gates of Dawn' by Pink Floyd. Just put on all the 'big' lights and whack the volume up and hey presto! No more parka-clad tosspots emptying your fridge and trying to sleep in your bath.
 
OneWingedBird said:
It wouldn't have to get all complicated if it was one of those things that 'everyone knows' eg everyone knows a red light in a window means prostitution, or pamphas grass in the garden flags up a house with swingers.
Click to expand...

Really?

Very popular in Australia during the seventies Pampas grass was - dunno about swingers though.
 
Images down Dover way (known as Damages locally due to local faces on the doors who would beat up a customer on a whim) used to play "we are the ovaltines" at the end of the night.
 
Regarding secret messages to staff... (I'm not sure if this is strictly relevent to this thread, but, wth).

I worked in a department store in Edinburgh (in the late 80's) where they had at least a couple of secret codes that could be transmitted across the PA to signal to staff that something untoward was up. The store in question had been targetted by animal rights activists in the past (since the shop sold furs) and due to bomb threats had instituted a message containing a key phrase that indicated to all staff that such a threat had been received and to get ready to clear the store of customers.

Similarly, the use of the phrase "Mr Heath.." was used to signal that a fire had been detected/reported; as in e.g. "Could Mr Heath please come to the Customer Services desk on the Ground Floor?". It allowed us to get ready to direct customers towards fire stairs and exits and get in place to stop anyone else boarding the lifts when the fire alarm sounded.

Not quite the same as the original post, but it is a code in commercial premises conveying a message.

What I wonder about the jukebox story is what they would do if there are ten tracks queued up to play - delay the bomb until the relevant disk hits the turntable?
 
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