Come all ye rounders if you want to hear the tale
Of a tape recorder man
He travelled far and wide through the dusty countryside
The tape recorder man
Collecting songs of love, collecting songs of blood
Sometimes songs of evil men and sometimes songs of good
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)

He said the age of the machine would make us all the same
The tape recorder man
And we should tape record the songs the old men sing
The tape recorder man
Because when the old were gone, there'd be no more songs
Just mechanical din
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)

At a music festival he presented to the world some of the folk greats
Then, with a condescending smile, he introduced us all to some electronic fakes
Saying 'The old folks don't need gimmicks to make the music new
But here's a group of college kids who apparently do'
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)

And he left the stage to seek some nerdy boffin geeks who sounded like the Pogues
Singing like the Bee Gees, dancing like freaks, playing modular Moogs
I met him in the dressing room at the end of the show
I said you used to be my hero but tonight you've fallen low
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)
I said tape recorder man damn your Memorex
What about innovation, man, what about art and sex?
He couldn't share my point of view, and he freely said so
So me and the tape recorder man quickly came to blows
I hit out at his shoulder where his tape recorder hung
It slipped to the floor with a crash, the strap must've been undone
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)

It exploded like a bomb from the first world war
And seven spools of folk recordings rolled across the floor
A random burst of yodelling rubbed up against the heads
That woozy crazy spool was like John Cage or Varese
I cried 'Tape recorder man, this I won't forget
This is folk music... concrete!'
(And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne)