Wit & Attitude Quote by George Formby

Formby’s genius here is how he smuggles a complaint about public judgment into something that sounds like a jaunty shrug. The voice is plainspoken, almost throwaway: everyone’s got “a crazy notion,” so why shouldn’t he? That phrasing does two jobs at once. It normalizes eccentricity (yours, mine, anyone’s) while quietly labeling society’s fixation on difference as the real madness.

The line about crowds versus solitude lands like a pre-emptive defense in a culture that loved performers onstage but still policed their offstage visibility. He’s not asking to be understood; he’s asking to be left alone. “It’s no one else’s business” is a working-class libertarianism before the term got culture-war baggage: a demand for privacy in public, for the right to move through the world without being turned into a spectacle.

Then the twist that makes it Formby: the ukulele. It’s not a grand symbol, it’s “me little ukulele,” a comic prop that also reads as identity. The instrument marks him instantly, collapsing the distance between person and persona. The stares aren’t just about an odd bloke with a small guitar; they’re about what happens when your job, your sound, your brand follows you into the street. He turns that discomfort into a singable joke, letting the audience laugh while also recognizing themselves as the ones doing the staring.