Lovely song from a lovely CD, "Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies" (Green Linnet)

GLAD RAGS AGAIN (written by Jez Lowe)

When this coat was a brighter blue
Though it never was brand new
I wore it till it crumbled at the sleeves
And I've kept it all these years
Though its darned with me joys and tears
And its patches are my memories and my dreams
We lived close to the kitchen floor
And high on a never-locked door it used to hang
Till at last it was tired and torn
And it fell to the words of scorn my friends all sang

Ch: But I swear and vow
If I only knew now all the things that I knew then
I'd be glad to wear glad rags again
Just tell me when
And I'ld be glad to wear glad rags again

There's a patch for the brown-eyed lass
That led me to the grass
And went home to a mansion on high
And her friends in their fancy clothes
Looked down from a well-bred nose
But I buckled me coat and I looked them in the eye
There a patch for the lonely nights
When the son of a poor man's plight stung me blind
And my mouth was a collier's curse
For the cut of me cards at bird seemed so unkind

Chorus

There's a patch for the friends as warm
In fair weather as in storm
That I left on a corner end and I saw no more
There's a million names in mind
That I never should've left behind
And swapped for a lonely beer on a foreign shore
There's a patch for the chance I took
In the hope that Lady Luck would steer in view
And a patch for scrape so fine
As yet another stitch in time would see me through

Ch.