THE FUNERAL SONG
(Keith Marsden)

1. They wheeled the coffin down the aisle. The choirboys sweetly sang.
The organ played a requiem and one sad church-bell rang.
He'd always been a quiet man, not given to a spree,
So we stood alone to bury dad, my poor old ma and me.

2. He was a traveling salesman, said he worked in ladies tights.
We always thought that was his job, not what he did at nights.
And though I'd known him twenty years, still I'd have never guessed.
Why when he had some time at home he needed so much rest.

CHORUS: Till all his other wives came in weeping down the aisle.
We had to send for extra chairs. They queued for half a mile.
They came from near. They came from far. They filled up every pew.
He must have been a Mormon and my mother never knew
Till all his other wives came back to share the Co-op ham tea,
And they bought a lot of kids with them that looked a lot like me.

3. The priest was old and feeble and made a bad job worse
When he tried to marry mother to the man who drove the hearse,
And one wife rang to ask us were we going to cremate,
And could we keep him on a low light as she thought she might be late.

4. One wife was only my age. She'd a warm look in her eye.
She said, "You're so much like your dad, it makes me want to cry.
I only live on Peel Street. Come and see me by and by,
For I've something that your father liked he'd have wanted you to try."

5. Then all his other wives came in, young and old alike.
One came in a bath chair and one on a motor bike.
A rock star in a Rolls, a Duchess in a coach and pair,
And a lady Sumo wrestler who'd been freighted in by air.
Yes, all his other wives came back. They came back one and all,
And they pinched the carpet off the floor and the paper off the wall.

You can hear this song sung by Mudcatter Graham Pirt on the double CD "Picking Sooty Blackberries" by "Cockersdale" from Camsco (Dick Greenhaus). Cockersdale are doing a US tour in October this year.

Cheers Bill