Songfacts®:

• Well, Mr Lacey, where'd you learn just what to do?
  Can you fix me up now with a teacher, I wanna become an inventor too
  
  Bruce Lacey was a true iconoclast. The eccentric British artist and performer, born on March 21, 1927, burst onto the London avant-garde scene after completing his national service in the Navy, with a unique blend of performance art and mechanical constructs. His work in film, sculpture, and performance art was wide-ranging, but it was his association with BBC Radio's The Goon Show and his unforgettable turn as George Harrison's flute-playing gardener in the 1965 Beatles feature film Help! that he's best known for. Even now, years after his passing on February 28, 2016, Lacey's legacy lives on, inspiring future generations of artists to push the boundaries of what is possible.
• This song pays homage to Bruce Lacey. The clatter and clanking of his robot, which he brought right into the studio, adds a unique sonic texture to the instrumental section.
• Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings wrote this stomping blues-rocker for the band's second album, What We Did on Our Holidays (released as Fairport Convention in the United States). "He was a neighbor of mine in Muswell Hill," explained Hutchings to Uncut magazine, "and he had an incredible house filled with robots he'd built. I'd written this blues and I said to the band, can we get him in the studio with one of his machines? So, he turned up with this walking robot which moved around the studio as it was recorded. This was Fairport in the early days - there was always a wacky sense of humor."