Old Man's Tale

歌詞

At the turning of the century, I was a lad of five Me father went off to fight the Boer and never came back alive Me Ma was left to bring us up, no charity she'd seek She rubbed and scrubbed and scraped along on seven-and-six a week I left the school at twelve years old to go and find a job With growing kids, me Ma was glad of the extra couple of bob Now I know that longer schooling would have stood me in good stead But you can't afford refinement when you're struggling for your bread And when the Great War came along, I did enter the pit I took the royal shilling and went off to do my bit I fought and warred in tears and mud, three years or thereabouts Well, I copped some gas in Flanders and got invalided out And when the war was over and we'd settled with the Hun We got back into civvies and we thought the fighting done We'd won the right to live in peace, but we didn't have such luck For we found the lot we had to fight for the right to go to work In '26 the General Strike found me out upon the streets For I'd a wife and kids by then, their needs I had to meet A new world it was coming, wi' a brotherhood of man But when the struggle it was over, we were back where we began I wandered through the factories, out of work, now and again I saw the Blackshirts marching o'er the things they did in Spain I brought me kids up decent, sure, I taught them wrong frae right But Hitler was the man who came and taught them how to fight Me daughter was a landgirl, got married to a Yank Me eldest son received a gong for stopping Rommel's tanks He caught some shrapnel in the side and convalesced in Rome Got married to an Eyetie nurse and ne'er bothered to come home Now, me daughter writes me once a month, a cheery little note About the colour telly and those other things she's got She's had a boy, a likely lad, he's only twenty-one She tells me that he's been called up to fight in Vietnam Well, I am living on the pension now, it doesn't go too far Not much to show for a life that seems like one great bloody war When you think of all that might have been, it makes you want to cry Well, I don't know how to change things, but by Christ we've got to try