Subject: Lyr Add: YOUNG PAUL (Jeremy Taylor)
From:
Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Jun 08 - 11:33 PM
These lyrics copied from Henry's Songbook:
YOUNG PAUL
(Jeremy Taylor)
"How about it, Ethel?" said old Sid.
"Ain't it time we had a kid?
Thirty years and nothing to show.
Something ought to be done, it did."
"Don't try those dirty tricks on me,"
Said Ethel. "You know I don't agree
With all that filth.
I've always lived my life respectably."
"But for thirty years," old Sid said,
"It's been as cold in our marriage bed
As the winter of '47,
So for God's sake, show some life before we're dead."
Now Ethel Brown was surprised
To see her belly increase in size.
"It's quite obscene," she said.
She had always known such things were most unwise.
Young Paul was a miserable-looking thing,
Like bones tied up in a piece of string;
And most of the time he cried,
And most of the time they let him cry.
One day the baby chanced to rest
His tiny hand on Ethel's breast.
"Get off," she screamed.
"This little brute, he's sex-obsessed."
Now, Sid was not such a bad old chap,
But after lunch, he liked his nap,
And sometimes Paul would yell,
So Sid would rise in wrath and give him a slap.
And when Paul was old enough,
They went on a seaside holiday to Kent,
And there they sat in deck chairs
With newspapers. They were content.
The mighty waves came rolling in
And Paul was terrified by the din,
And he tried to run away.
"Don't be a sissy," Ethel said, and pushed him in.
As Paul grew up, he began to stutter,
And Mum and Dad were heard to mutter,
"What's the matter with him?
If he can't control his tongue, he must be dim."
And when Paul was seventeen, he fell
In love with a girl he knew quite well.
He took her home one day.
"Who's that you've got down there?" he heard Sid say.
"It's j-just a f-f-friend," said young Paul.
"Cho's c-c-come to say hello and all."
"Take her back," said Ethel.
"We don't want to know."
Now Paul is away in a mental home.
His Mum and Dad sit all alone
And wonder what went wrong.
"We did our best," they say, "but he wasn't strong."
[As sung by Iain Mackintosh on "Home for a While," Kettle Records KOP 14, 1984.]
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