Whitsun weekend 1964, The Oasis Cafe in Weston-Super-Mare, weather absolutely atrocious. One of the lads said "Look at the stoopid tourists walking round in the rain! Someone should write a song about them!" Just then, the juke box burst into life with Pete Seeger singing LITTLE BOXES (The Oasis had a GOOD assortment on the box). That was the birth of this gem!

Little tourists, little tourists, and they're all in their mini cars
All in their Pacamacs with their buckets and spades,
There's a tall one, a short one, a fat one and a thin one,
And they're all eating Fish and Chips and they all look the same.

And they've travelled from Bristol and Birmingham and Liverpool,
And they all drag their kids along and sit on the beach,
And it rains and it pours and the sky falls on top of them,
But they all eat their candy floss and sit there just the same.

And father gets a deckchair and lies under his Daily Sketch,
While their transistor radios stay switched on all day,
While their twelve year old daughter seduces the beach photographer,
And Granny drinks her cups of tea and rots there just the same.

Then they go on the pier and fill up the slot machines,
And have rides on the roundabouts and donkeys and trains,
Then they jump in their cars and cause an eighteen mile traffic jam.
It happens every year, but they come back just the same.