You can hear this at YouTube. This too is recited to piano accompaniment. Flotsam and Jetsam alternate verses.


OLD BILL AND YOUNG BILL
As recorded by Mr Flotsam & Mr Jetsam, 1940.

Ours is a different war, ours is,
From the one our fathers fought;
For theirs was a war of mud and trench,
And sweat and toil and blood and stench,
But facts were facts and French were French,
And our allies couldn’t be bought.
Oh, this is a different war, this is,
From the one our fathers fought.

We grubbed and groused in dugouts deep,
Blasphemed when the Bosch disturbed our sleep,
But we knew where he was, and he knew where we were,
And war being war, most things seemed fair,
Whether Blighty or leave back over the foam,
To find our folks all safe at home.

Not so we sons; we’re put to work
For a spell in hell and then Dunkirk.
No getting to grips but home on ships
That we’d used in peace for pleasure trips.
Yes, home to learn that our special wench
Has been blown sky high from a factory bench,
And our folks are god knows where.
Oh, ours is a hell of a war, ours is,
For it’s all so damned unfair.

We old contemptibles loved our name,
And we had Ben's(?) father to build our fame,
And our wives leant over their windowsills
And called out the news of their own old Bills,
For times would come when we’d over the top,
And belabour the Jerries and capture a crop,
And this helped to keep us from going bats
In our four-year siege of lice and rats.

In that, we share our fathers’ dread,
But the rats we hate fly overhead,
And the louse we loathe is the airborne louse
That sheds its bombs on our parents’ house.
Oh, God! for the chance our fathers had
Of a good straight fight with a foe gone mad.

Theirs is a different war, theirs is,
From the war we fathers fought.
And our old hearts bleed for our thwarted sons
Who must needs mark time till the tireless guns
Have pounded a path to the hides of the Huns
And the day when we’ll spare them not.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
And the pagan polluter of Germany's youth
To hang as he damned well ought.
Oh, this is a different war, this is,
From the war our fathers fought.