Joy Durst dots here

096 THE STRANGER words & tune by John Manifold, based on a Polish air

1. A stranger came into the district last week,
He wasn't a Balt and he wasn't a Greek;
We enquired "Was he Irish?" He answered us, "No",
He came from up North where the pineapples grow.

2. He answered so mannerly, quite at his ease,
Saying neither too much nor too little to please,
He was hardly a stranger by tea-time, although
He came from up North where the pineapples grow.

3. We swapped the old stories of famine and flood
And the crook politicians that suck a man's blood;
We had reckoned they might have been local, but no!
It's the same in the North where the pineapples grow.

4. We tickled his fancy with peaches and cream,
We showed him Polled Angus as sleek as a dream,
He agreed they were 'mighty', but still he must go ...
He was needed up North where the pineapples grow.

5. The moral of this is too plain to be spoke:
The bloke on the land is a sensible bloke
Be he brown as a berry, or black as a crow,
Or just from up North where the pineapples grow.