# What is the meaning to this song lyric?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [September 20, 2022, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896 "2022-09-20T08:47:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2022, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/1 "2022-09-20T08:47:14Z")
I was listening to one of my favorite albums from the 80’s today, Adam Ants _"Friend or Foe_".
There is a song on the album called _“Crackpot History and the Right to Lie”._
The song generally is about his feelings about fame and how in Britain people love to knock you down when you’re on top. But there is a line in the song I just don’t get.
That line in the song is:
_ **Pumping is a splendid gift, I hope that you will catch my drift** _
_ **Some like pumping in the lift, just like the Scottish tongs** _
My first guess is it’s talking about having sex in an elevator.
But what/who the hell are the Scottish Tongs?
The only thing I could come up with is a street gang named Real Calton Tongs in Glasgow, Scotland. But what do they have to do with pumping in a lift?
WTH?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHcRrrMyeEw)
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/2 "2022-11-16T12:27:58Z")
Gee whiz. There must be someone on these boards from Great Britain that can enlighten me.
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### Author:  [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/3 "2022-11-16T13:09:20Z")
I’m not a Brit, but _pumping in the lift_ translates to _farting in the elevator_.
Can’t help you with what that has to do with Scottish tongs.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/4 "2022-11-16T13:17:29Z")
I Googled this:
> " **Tongland** is a local [nickname](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nickname) for the area of [Calton, Glasgow](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Calton,_Glasgow) controlled in the 1960s by a violent [Scottish](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Scotland) teenage gang called the Real Calton Tongs. The Tongs financed themselves using a [protection racket](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Protection_racket), levying money on shops within their [territory](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Protection_racket#Territorial_monopolies), and they marked that territory out in [graffiti](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Graffiti) with their slogan “Tongs Ya Bass”."
So I’m guessing that those thugs like farting on elevators just to torture whatever unfortunates happen to be riding with them.
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### Author:  [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/5 "2022-11-16T13:43:05Z")
I’m British but don’t recognise the expression Scottish Tongs.
However, as a guess, ‘pumping’ can mean farting and Adam Ant was from London where they like rhyming slang. So possibly ‘Scottish Tongs’ is being used as slang for pongs?
Hence in a song criticising some people (in the music business) as being simply nasty people he’s observing: Some people like farting in a confined space because some people like the smell.
But that’s just my guess.
TCMF-2L
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/6 "2022-11-16T15:31:13Z")
Isn’t pumping slang for fucking, just like the OP initially suspected? I’ve certainly seen Frankie Boyle use it that way.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/7 "2022-11-16T20:45:49Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> I Googled this:
>
> > " **Tongland** is a local [nickname](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nickname) for the area of [Calton, Glasgow](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Calton,_Glasgow) controlled in the 1960s by a violent [Scottish](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Scotland) teenage gang called the Real Calton Tongs. The Tongs financed themselves using a [protection racket](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Protection_racket), levying money on shops within their [territory](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Protection_racket#Territorial_monopolies), and they marked that territory out in [graffiti](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Graffiti) with their slogan “Tongs Ya Bass”."
>
> So I’m guessing that those thugs like farting on elevators just to torture whatever unfortunates happen to be riding with them.
But why would pumping be a “splendid gift”? The entire meaning of this lyric is quit obscure.
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### Author:  [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/8 "2022-11-16T20:54:33Z")
I suspect that, like most song lyrics, it means nothing.
Just a bunch of random words put together to rhyme and scan and sound
pretentious.
But that’s just imho.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/9 "2022-11-16T21:02:50Z")
Nah. The entire album (except for the cover of a Doors song) is peppered with lyrics geared towards people he was pissed at for disrespecting himself and his former bandmates, including industry insiders and even the general public at large. The lyrics on this song mean something. I just don’t know what. It’s been bugging me for over 40 years.
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### Author:  [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2022, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/10 "2022-11-16T21:34:49Z")
FWIW, Songfact says
> In his autobiography, Adam Ant said this song “covers my feelings about fame and how in Britain people love to knock you down when you’re on top”.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/11 "2022-11-17T00:05:12Z")
The entire album minus one song is commentary of like topics. “Goody Two Shoes” was about how people turned on him because he left the Ants because they were doing drugs. “Here Comes the Grump” was about fame being fleeting, “Friend or Foe” was about how he found out who his real friends were when he got famous, and so on. Every song had a real life meaning that was personal and specific to him. It was quite clever.
Which compounds the mystery of the Scottish Tongs lyrics.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-meaning-to-this-song-lyric/971896/12 "2022-11-17T12:06:27Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> But why would pumping be a “splendid gift”? The entire meaning of this lyric is quit obscure.
Very immature males will often vie with one another to make the longest and loudest ones. "“Splendid gift” may be a sarcastic reference who to those who are very adept at doing so.