Cloud Cuckoo Land by Schantieman
(Tune: Fiddler's Green by John Connolly & Bill Meek (well, probably only one of them, but I don't know who wrote which bit!); New words by Steve Freedman 2000 - 2001 with help from Graham Holland)

Schantieman's Comments:  This was as a result of a challenge by Alison Underwood (of the Shellbacks) during the Mersey Shanty Festival 2000, just after I'd sung my parody of 'Dido, Bendigo'.  Try and stay with the Fiddler's Green tune for the last verse too!

As I walked by the schoolyard one morning in May,
With the children all laughing and shouting at play
I heard an old schoolteacher make this request:
"Oh, take me away from this terrible mess!"

Chorus:
Dress me up in my gown and my mortar
No more in the classroom I'll stand
Go tell my old colleagues (who're all alcoholics)
That I'll see them someday in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Now Cloud Cuckoo Land is the place, so they say,
Where teachers will go when they've all had their day.
Where you sit in the staff room that's full of good cheer
With the Telegraph crossword and a pint of fine beer.

Where the board's always clean and the chalk doesn't squeak
And the books mark themselves without fail every week,
Reports are all written, the kids out at play
And the OFSTED inspection is far, far away.

Now I've been a schoolteacher for many's the year
And I've had little money for whisky and beer
But now I'm retiring with no gold in store
And I never will be a schoolteacher no more.

Copyright ©2001 S. J. Freedman