Lyrics to Four Yorkshiremen

Michael: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de

Chassilier, eh Josiah?

Terry J: You're right there Obediah.

Eric: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be

sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier?

Michael: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have

the price of a cup o' tea.

Graham: A cup o' COLD tea.

Eric: Without milk or sugar.

Terry J: OR tea!

Michael: In a cracked cup, and all.

Eric: We never had a cup. We used to have to drink out

of a rolled up newspaper.

Graham: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece

of damp cloth.

Terry J: But you know, we were happy in those days,

though we were poor.

Michael: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to

say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."

Eric: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had

NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiny old house, with

greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

Graham: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used

to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no

furniture. Half the floor was missing and we were all

huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Terry J: You were lucky to have a ROOM! We used to have

to live in a corridor!

Michael: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a

corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live

in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up

every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped

all over us! House!? Hmph.

Eric: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the

ground covered by a sheet of tarpolin, it was a house

to US.

Graham: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we

had to go and live in a lake!

Terry J: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a

hundred and fifty of us living in a shoebox in the

middle of the road.

Michael: Cardboard box?

Terry J: Aye.

Michael: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a

paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up

at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust

of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen

hours a day week in week out, for sixpence a week. When

we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his

belt!

Graham: Luxury! We used to have to get out of the lake

at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a

handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour a day at the

mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would

thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were

LUCKY!

Terry J: Well of course, we had it tough. We used to

have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at

night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had

half two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours

a day at the mill for sixpence every four years, and

when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a

bread knife.

Eric: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten

o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed,

drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a

day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to

come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our

Mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves

singing "Hallelujah."

Michael: And you try and tell the young people today

that... and they won't believe ya'.

All: They won't..