Lyr Req/ADD: At the Bottom of the Garden (M Boyce)

Subject: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 05:18 AM

a song max boyce used to do about the inconveniences of using conveniences?

some half remembered bits:


'At the bottom of the garden is a place we all know'
??????????

'And even the Queen has to go on her own'

Anyone have the whole thing?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: JudeL
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 07:02 AM

You could try looking on the max boyce website

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 07:08 AM

jude,

tried that before i made this request, its not there

Subject: Lyr Add: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN (Max Boyce)
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:10 PM

From the book "Max Boyce: his Songs & Poems":

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN
(by Max Boyce, 1976)

At the bottom of the garden there's a place you all know,
Where everybody hurries but they try not to show.
Though colliers and lawyers and J.Ps and earls:
Teachers and preachers and young boys and girls.

CHORUS
Singing Toora-ly, oora-ly, oora-ly, ay.
Have you been down there - my darlings, today?
Where there ain't any telly and there isn't a phone:
Where even the King has to go on his own!

They can have their fine mansions and their ivory walls,
They can have their stained windows and echoey halls.
But I'll never be envious although I'm alone:
I'm happy to sit on my own little throne.

Now the people from Cardiff, they spend quite a lot
To try and disguise what, like us, they have got.
There's lace on the curtains and they've Marleyed the floor!
But the plumbing's disconnected - it's just there for show.

But the people from Ponty have theirs designed
So they can sit there with their hands entwined!
And the green lawn around it is perfectly mown,
But the writing on the wall, damn, it can't be their own.

Now the country today's in a terrible way,
With the chapels and churches not paying their way.
But there's one little place that I really can say
It's as popular now as it was yesterday.

Singing Toora-ly, oora-ly, oora-ly, ay.
Ooora-ly, oora-ly, oora-ly, ay.
There's more to my song but must be on my way,
I haven't been down there, my darlings, today!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:26 PM

Ah, yes,

Visiting Grandma!


Robin

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 02:56 AM

That's the one!

Thanks a lot Joan!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 12:35 PM

You're welcome!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: songs2play
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 08:16 AM

Good grief Joan, I haven't heard that song for over 30 years.
I remember watching Max in the Treorchy Rugby Club doing that very song, and I'm afraid to say I was in one of the "warm-up-bands" before hand.

See you soon Joan,

Leighton.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Max Boyce song
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 03:12 PM

Welcome back from holiday, Leighton, hope it was a good one. And I'm sure your "warm-up band" was a good one, too. See you soon.

Joan

Subject: Lyr Add: WE ALL HAD DOCTORS PAPERS (Max Boyce)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 04:36 AM

With 'Stradey Park' seeing its final match tonight, there may be others looking for Max Boyce's "WE ALL HAD DOCTORS PAPERS". So, as a public service!

It was on a dark and dismal day in a week that had seen rain
When all roads led to Stradey Park with the All Blacks here again
They poured down from the valleys they came from far and wide
There were 20,000 in the ground and me and Dai outside.

The shops were closed like Sunday and streets were silent still
And those that chose to stay away were either dead or ill
But those that went to Stradey, boys, will remember 'til they die
How New Zealand were defeated and how the pubs ran dry.

Oh aye, the beer flowed at Stradey piped down from Felinfoel
And the hands that held the glasses high were strong from steel and coal
And the air was filled with singing and I saw a grown man cry -
Not because we'd won, but because the pubs ran dry!

Then dawned the morning after on empty factories
For we were still at Stradey - bloodshot absentees
But we all had doctor's papers and they all said just the same,
That we all had scarlet fever and we'd caught it at the game.

Now all the little babies in Llanelli from now on
Will be christened Roy or Carwyn, Derek, Delme, Phil or John
And in a hundred years they'll sing this song for me
Of when the scoreboard read, Llanelli 9, Seland Newydd 3

And when I'm old and my hair turns grey and they put me in a chair
I'll tell my great-grandchildren that their Tad-cu, was there
And they'll ask to hear the story of that damp October day
When I went down to Stradey and I saw the Scarlets play.


As far as I know, there is no tune to this; I've only heard Max do it as a recitation.