“I asked my mum to make me a costume, which I wore all around London. It tapped into the British sense of humour. There’s nothing more ridiculous”: If Death is a rabbit and you're on TV as a Womble, you’re probably Mike Batt

UNITED KINGDOM - JANUARY 01: TOP OF THE POPS Photo of WOMBLES (Photo by David Warner Ellis/Redferns)

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Best known for writing the theme tune to the popular children’s TV show The Wombles, composer and arranger Mike Batt developed a strong association with progressive music, working with everyone from Family and Steeleye Span to Hawkwind. In 2023 Batt discussed his career so far with Prog.

When did you start touting your wares in London?

At the age of 18, I thought to myself, “I am now a songwriter.” By night I was at the strip club, by day I was on a train to London. I would never send my stuff to record companies – I always asked for a meeting.

That’s how I met the assistant of the assistant of Jack Baverstock at Philips, Dick Leahy, who ended up being one of the most powerful and brilliant executives in the industry [with Bell Records].

My biggest break came when I answered an advert in NME, one that Elton John also answered, as did Bernie Taupin. It was Liberty Records, looking for talent. It amazed me that a record label was advertising for talent because usually they told you to fuck off. I went in to see the A&R man, Ray Williams, who was about 20.

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I brought in a tape I’d recorded at home with a mic hanging from the ceiling light. My cousin had played violin and we had a drummer in the next room. I was signed on the spot to the publishing company, and one of those songs became my first single [Mr Poem, 1968].

That was fast work. You seemed to move into arranging very quickly too.

I did the arrangements for Family’s Music In A Doll’s House. Their music blew me away, and from a prog point of view that’s probably when the flame was lit in me to do rather unusual orchestral heavy rock. I wasn’t credited on that, but I should have been. If I had, I reckon I’d have had a bigger career as an arranger in my younger days.

How did you get involved with The Wombles?

I was A&R man at Liberty for about 18 months, then they got swallowed up by United Artists. I hated the corporate life. I wanted to be an artist and to do more arranging and conducting. I had an agent who got me some jingle work; I did things for Guinness and Smarties.

Then one day she rang me and said an independent company were making a BBC show, and would I like to talk with the man with the wonderfully fictitious-sounding name of Graham Clutterbuck from FilmFair?

I met with Graham and Ivor Wood, who did the design for the Wombles TV characters. In the book they’re teddy bears; Ivor gave them the pointy noses. I suggested that rather than compose a jingle I would write a song, and I did it in a day. “Wombling” wasn’t a verb until I wrote the song! And they were only free because it rhymed with “we.” That was my first hit, and then I had to write a follow-up – Remember You’re A Womble.

Why did The Wombles’ music become so popular?

It tapped into the British sense of humour, our sense of the ridiculous. There’s nothing more ridiculous than seeing The Wombles on Top Of The Pops. But that only happened as I was trying to get some marketing for the single and the label didn’t want to know.

I asked my mum to make me a Womble costume, which I wore for a week all around London. At one point I hailed a taxi at Green Park, and the driver got so confused when I put my Womble head in his window that he said, “Sorry, madam, I’m not going that way,” and roared off!

On the Tuesday I got a call: Top Of The Pops asked if there was a band, and could we do the show on the Thursday? There wasn’t, but I said “yes” and asked three mates to help: Hapshash drummer Andy Renton, his brother Tony, and Robin Le Mesurier, son of [actors] John and Hattie Jacques.

For the next two days me, my sister and my parents were sewing costumes. That Thursday, the Wombles got together for the first time in the BBC dressing room. I showed them some steps... then we were on TV.

Steeleye Span approached you to produce them at this time, didn’t they?

Tim Hart and Peter Knight got in touch – I got the gig because they liked the drum sounds on the Wombles tracks! They were broad-minded and commercially minded. We did two albums: the very successful All Around My Hat and the medium-successful Rocket Cottage. I got on brilliantly with Pete – he could roll a joint with one hand, which impressed the hell out of me – and he contributed solos to some of my records, such as Arabesque.

The orchestra were going, ‘Oh my God, we’re playing with Hawkwind!’ Hawkwind were going, ’Oh my God, we’re playing with an orchestra!’

Did Watership Down resonate with you, being a Hampshire lad and the work being based around a hill there?

No, the record company recommended me for a title song. The director told me he wanted a song about Death. Fucking hell! Not only that, but it was a rabbit. I then realised it was a human analogy, and what happens after death. I sat at the piano and Bright Eyes came into my mind because that’s what a living person has.

Then they asked who I’d like to sing it with, and I had a top three: Art Garfunkel – but I thought he’d never go for it – Colin Blunstone and Jon Anderson. People who were going to break your heart. When Art heard it, though, he absolutely loved it.

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No one would have expected this collaboration: you and Hawkwind. Was Dave Brock a Womble?

I’m not telling you! I knew Hawkwind back in ’69 when they were signed to Liberty. We reconnected after when me and Katie Melua were at the US embassy to get visas at the same time as Dave and his wife Kris. By 2017 they’d asked me if I’d like to produce an upcoming album, The Road To Utopia. We went into Air Studios and did some reimaginings of past tracks.

Then they said, “We’d like to do a symphonic tour.” It was difficult, in an interesting way! The 30-piece orchestra were going, “Oh my God, we’re playing with Hawkwind!” and Hawkwind were going, “Oh my God, we’re playing with an orchestra!” I was there to keep it together.

There were incidents like, “No, Dave, you can’t go off and do 16 bars of that, the horns are coming in.” But it was great fun, and I joined the band for one night in 2018, at Citadel Festival in Gunnersbury, as keyboard player.

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Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer who joined Kerrang! in 1999 and then the dark side – Prog – a decade later as Deputy Editor. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!) and asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit. Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London and can be occasionally heard polluting the BBC Radio airwaves as a pop and rock pundit. Steven Wilson still owes her £3, which he borrowed to pay for parking before a King Crimson show in Aylesbury.

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