Magic Bus Lyrics

I'm hoping someone here can explain to me what the lyrics mean
in THE WHO's song Magic Bus:

"Thruppence and sixpence every day
Just to drive to my baby
Thruppence and sixpence each day
'Cause I drive my baby every way".

How much exactly is a Thruppence and sixpence every day?
And if he got on the bus and went both ways how much would
it be for a round trip? Weekly? Monthly? Do they still use
Thruppence as currency in England today? It's a great song
by THE WHO it's just that I've always wondered about those lyrics.
It's one of my favourite songs by THE WHO.

Beatles1964

And also while I'm on the subject about the lyrics to Magic Bus:
Could someone Please also explain these lyrics to me too?

"You'll be an inspector, have no fear". An inspector of what?
An Inspector like a Private Eye? An Inspector for the Bus line?
or am I just taking these lyrics much too literally? or would an
Inpector be more like an Chief Inspector Detective (CID)?
Like John Thaw portrayed in the Inspector Morse Series?

On the topic of money, I heard a gentleman speaking of something that was bought with "old" pounds speculating about what the thing would have cost in new pounds. It sounded as though this took place after the war. I assume that at some point the pound was devalued?? If so when did that happen and what were the circumstances?

What exactly does (or did) a Thruppence look like? And how much is (or was) it's value?

Beatles1964

Here's what Wikipedia says about thruppence. I'm wondering if this is the change between old and new pounds as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thruppence

Hi B64,

It's a terrific song. The particulars about the old pound and translating toward the decimilisation that came a few years later probably aren't that important (though Wikipedia will give you the details). Maybe it's more about the symbol of everyday life, the trade from the mundane toward the heartfelt. You probably know the Turtles' song, "Happy Together", with its lyric, "call you up, invest a dime." It's not the dime that matters: it's what it leads to.

Good stuff.

#1

The Inspector would be a bus inspector. That is a supervisor's role. Part of the job would be choosing which conductor to pair with driver, to carry out checks of buses keeping to schedule etc.

The pound has always been a pound (no "new" pound or "old") though, clearly, inflation has taken its toll. When I started work in September 1963, I earned 333 pounds per year and felt rich enough to lend my brother money to go to university. In those days a Mars bar cost three pence (thruppence), a gallon of petrol (gas) about 2 shillings (24 pence), 20 cigarettes 2 shiilings and 6 pence (30 pence), I lived in lodgings (all found - 3 meals a day -7 days a week) for 2 pounds 10 shillings a week (that's 50 shillings or 600 pence). The old "single" 45 record cost "six and eight" - six shillings eight pence (which was one third of a pound ...)

The point, I guess, about thruppence was that, like the tanner (6 pence) and the shilling or "bob" (12 pence) it was a coin and was a convenient and customary amount that things cost.

As krolik says, the old and new might refer to the pre- and post- decimalisation in 1971, when we moved from 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound to 100 pence in a pound. That change introduced some mild inflation as people / businesses rounded up in the conversion.

Then, just as we were getting used to that, the early 1970s had its own oil crisis, (Britain was on the point of introducing fuel rationing - I still have my coupons) and that produced a major bump in inflation, I remember we had two or three pay rises a year of about 10% each time just to keep up.

Thanks everyone to help clear up the meaning of Magic Bus for me. From now on now henever I hear it it'll make more sense to me. Somehow I had a feeling the inspector they were talking about would be a bus inspector.
So 100 Pence equals 1 pound? Just like 100 pennies equals one dollar.

Beatles1964

#8

Well now it is 100 pence to the pound. In the 60s it was 240 pennies to the pound (12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound).
BobH1 gives far more detail because he undoubtedly remembers it, where I was still too young to buy stuff when we changed.

The song is about the bands ride to a whorehouse. In England men would be visually inspected for VD.
Now it all makes sense.

Back in 1968 I was visiting relatives in England, and my cousin and I figured out (with much more effort than should have been needed) that a (US) penny was worth a (Uk) penny. It's been a long time since the pound was worth $2.40. So you can just think of it as 3cents and 6 cents at the time.

>11 MarthaJeanne: That makes sense, it will save the OP translating it back from 2025 to 2010 values :-)

The 1d=1c rule isn’t quite exact, though: 3d and 6d were round numbers (remember, we are counting in twelves, not tens) and correspond to actual coins, so psychologically “a nickel and a dime” might be a better equivalent. The twelve-sided brass thruppence was always my favourite among the old coins, for some reason — perhaps because it was rather less common than the penny and the sixpence.