The Old Man Songtext / Lyric

The Old Man

At the turning of the century I was a boy of five
My father went to fight the Boers and never came back alive
My mother was left to bring us up no charity she'd seek
So she washed and scrubbed and scraped along for seven and six a week

When I was twelve I left the school and went to find a job
With growing kids me Ma was glad of the extra couple of bob
I'm sure that longer schooling would have stood me in good stead
But you can't afford refinements when you're struggling for your bread

And when the Great War came along I didn't hesitate
I took the Royal shilling and went off to do me bit
We fought in mud and tears and blood three years or there about
Then I copped some gas in Flanders and was invalided out

And when the war was over and we'd finished with the guns
We got back into civvies cause we thought the fighting's done
We'd won the right to live in peace but we didn't have such luck
For soon we found we had to fight for the right to go to work

In '26 the general strike saw me out on the street
For I'd a wife and kids by then and their needs I had to meet
For the Brave New World was coming and the brotherhood of man
But when the strike was over we were back where we began

I struggled through the thirties at work now and again
I saw the black shirts marching and the things they did in Spain
I brought me kids up decent and I taught them wrong from right
But Hitler was the lad that came and he taught them how to fight

Me daguhter was a land girl she got married to a yank
They gave me son a medal for stopping one of Rommel's tanks
He was wounded just before the end and he convalesced in Rome
Then he married an Italian nurse and never bothered to come home

Me daughter writes me once a month a cheerful little note
About their colour telly and the other things they've got
They've got a son a likely lad he's nearly twenty-one
But they tell me now they've called him up to fight in Vietnam

We're living on a pension now it doesn't reach too far
Not much to show for a life that seems like one long bloody war
When you think of all the wasted lives it makes you want to cry
I'm not sure how to change things but by Christ we'll have to try