tune. The single did not chart, selling only around 19,000 copies (a small number for a single in 1977) but won critical acclaim. One factor of the poor sales performance may have been Stiff Records' singles deletion policy designed to promote initial sales and as such, chart success - the single was deleted after only two months. Released, as it was, at the height of the popularity of punk rock, the song was misinterpreted (and often is to this day) as a song about excess, as its title and chorus might suggest. Although the single was banned by the BBC, a number of Radio 1 disc jockeys, including Annie Nightingale and John Peel, continued to promote the record by playing the mildly salacious B-side "Razzle In My Pocket". Dury himself maintained, however, that the song was not a punk anthem and said he was trying to suggest that there was more to life than a 9-to-5 existence (as in, for example, his track-by-track comments for the sleeve-notes of Repertoire Records' Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best Of Ian Dury & The Blockheads compilation). The verse lyrics are at times somewhat inscrutable, although always suggestive of an alternative lifestyle: Here's a little bit of advice, you're quite welcome, it is free Don’t do nothing that is cut-price, you'll know what that'll make you be They will try their tricky device, trap you with the ordin'ry Get your teeth into a small slice [of] the cake of liberty. The title of the song became part of the English language and was later used in many other song lyrics. "Billericay Dickie" Narrated by a bragging bricklayer from Billericay, the song is filled with name-checks for places in Essex and features a number of suggestive rhymes: I had a love affair with Nina In the back of my Cortina A seasoned-up hyena Could not have been more obscener Each verse tells a different short story, relating one of Dickie's sexual conquests in southeastern England, while the choruses see him insisting he is a caring, conscientious lover and "not a thickie", even giving the names of two girls ("a pair of squeaky chickies") as referees who would attest to this. Dickie is a character most commonly referred to in the media as an "Essex lad". The song, perhaps the best example of Dury's "Englishness" or "Essexness", was given its fairground-like arrangement by American Steve Nugent.