Tour-bus toilets, galloping horses: how Tenpole Tudor built Swords of a Thousand Men

Tenpole Tudor's 1981 single "Swords of a Thousand Men" was born in a tour-bus toilet. Frontman Edward Tudor-Pole wrote the song's basic idea during Stiff Records' three-month tour of the northern hemisphere, retreating to the coach latrine because the road offered no solitude.

"It's near-impossible to write songs on the road because you lack the basic solitude, so I'd retire to the tour coach latrine," Tudor-Pole said. The melody was a boogie-blues progression, inspired partly by Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Canned Heat's "On the Road Again." The lyrics came only after the tour ended, while the band rehearsed near their favourite drinking haunt — the Castle pub on Holloway Road, London — which supplied the opening line: "Deep in the castle and back from the war."

What kind of song is it?

Tudor-Pole frames the track as compressed national myth. "Swords is like a three-minute history of England," he said. "I like to think it could have been written at any time and been a popular folk song. Knights were the first superheroes, and the people buying the record in 1981 were 11-year-old boys." The song became a playground craze. "I've always felt I had the mind of an 11-year-old," he added.

A few years earlier, he had recorded "Who Killed Bambi" and, for publicity, fed Malcolm McLaren the line that he was a direct descendant of Henry VIII. "He thought it was hilarious," Tudor-Pole said.

The band leaned into the knights-in-armour image with doublets, hoses and tabards. Live shows were theatrical: sometimes they walked on stage to the William Tell Overture, and Tudor-Pole would declaim the St Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V. "People would shout: 'You're the rightful king of England!' I'd say: 'No I'm not!' They'd say: 'Yes, you are!'" He places the act in the fun, rocking tradition of Sweet, Slade and Status Quo, with a touch of music hall. "Swords" was one of the first pop videos shown on MTV, and the band hired members of the Sealed Knot historical reenactment society for the shoot.

One street encounter stands out. "A policeman beckoned me over and said: 'Are you the person responsible for Swords of a Thousand Men?' Given my permanently guilty conscience, I was terrified. But he just said: 'Well done, congratulations,' and shook my hand. That was lovely."

How was the record built?

Bassist Dick Crippen supplies the studio history. The band had been rushed into the studio to record tracks for their first album, "Eddie, Old Bob, Dick and Gary." When the mixes came back, they could not hear a potential single among them. Tudor-Pole's skeleton idea for "Swords" caught their attention with its rhythmic, faintly rockabilly feel, and they worked it up outside the studio.

"Eddie loved the idea of chants you could sing on football terraces, hence the 'Hoo-rah, hoo-rah, hoo-rah, yeah!'" Crippen said. The band took pride in their harmonies, heard on later singles such as "Wünderbar" and "Throwing My Baby Out With the Bathwater."

They recorded "Swords" at Island Studios with Alan Winstanley, who was also producing Madness. "He was a master engineer," Crippen said. With all the parts down, the song still lacked an intro. Influenced by the Stranglers' JJ Burnel, Crippen wanted a bass intro that was instantly recognisable using as few notes as possible. The "dinga-dinga" bass start was the result — "as soon as the song comes on in a club, everyone knows what it is," he said.

On its own the line was too sparse, so the galloping horses came from a sound effects LP in the BBC library. The horn is Crippen himself: having played bugle in a Boy Scouts' band, he borrowed a mate's trumpet and blew two minimalist notes. Drummer Gary Long overdubbed timpani, sitting in the corridor to capture a big, ringing sound.

What happened after?

Crippen calls "Swords" a punk-psychobilly crossover that earned the band a rockabilly-cum-psychobilly following. Guitarist Bob Kingston had always looked like a 1950s ted with his greasy quiff. At a Crystal Palace Bowl gig, the band was bombarded with mud and weeds — a trait, Crippen notes, of psychobilly fans.

Tenpole Tudor broke up too soon, in Crippen's view. He built his own Panther Studios in Surrey, where he now makes ambient music alongside punk bands. Ten years ago his band the Weird Things backed Tudor-Pole on "Swords" at a London show. "It was brilliant being on stage with him again, doing what we used to do," Crippen said.

Tudor-Pole has been touring recently to promote his autobiography, "The Pen Is Mightier" — a play on "Swords" — and when he performs the song, the audience sings the chorus for him. "Those 11-year-olds are in their late 50s now," he said. "You always love the first record you bought, don't you?" Four decades on, the playground craze still knows every word.