The Wristwatch For A Drummer

by Clive James and Pete Atkin

The Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
Is the only wristwatch for a drummer
It tells true and it ain't no bummer

The Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
Can stand for more than mere immersion
It thrives on whiplash, lurch and shock
Trad, mainstream, bop and rock
Baby Dodds had an early version

The Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
Man, what a creation!
It's a mine of information
A vernier scale, the date in braille
Sidereal time, the rate of crime
And the growth of population

It's got more jewels than Princess Grace
Buckminster Fuller designed the case
Leonardo engraved the face
And did the calibration

And those knobs and screws and toggles
The imagination boggles

The Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
Without this timepiece there'd have been
No modern jazz to begin with
Bird and Diz were tricky men for a drummer to sit in with

Max Roach still wears the watch he wore when bop was new
Elvin Jones has two and Buddy Rich wears three
One on the right wrist, one on the left
And the third one around his knee

The Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
Has a warning-bell for free-form playing
That tells you when you're overstaying
Your tentative welcome with the paying
Customers in the deep decaying
Cellar club with the stained and fraying
Velvet drapes and the stooped and greying
Owner

It'll count the bars and tell you when
The basset-horn's coming in again
It'll see you right while you're trading twelves
With a synthesizer played by elves
Wear this watch and you'll keep in step
With Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp
Why be a loner?

Get the Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
It's the only wristwatch for a drummer
It tells true and it ain't no bummer

So any time the brushes shimmer
On skins and brass while the solo tenor
Slowly blows the lazy phrases
You'll catch the golden glimmer
Of the wristwatch in the gloom
So softly now let's sing its praises

For the music in the room
Both beautiful and true
On plushly hushed extended wings
Is flown to me and you

By the Omega Incabloc Oyster Accutron 72
The only wristwatch for a drummer
It tells true and it ain't no bummer