Four Yorkshiremen Lyrics

Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen

Michael: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de
Chassilier, eh Josiah?
Terry J: You're right there Obediah.
Eric: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be
sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier?
Michael: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have
the price of a cup o' tea.
Graham: A cup o' COLD tea.
Eric: Without milk or sugar.
Terry J: OR tea!
Michael: In a cracked cup, and all.
Eric: We never had a cup. We used to have to drink out
of a rolled up newspaper.
Graham: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece
of damp cloth.
Terry J: But you know, we were happy in those days,
though we were poor.
Michael: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to
say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
Eric: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had
NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiny old house, with
greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
Graham: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used
to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no
furniture. Half the floor was missing and we were all
huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
Terry J: You were lucky to have a ROOM! We used to have
to live in a corridor!
Michael: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a
corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live
in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up
every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped
all over us! House!? Hmph.
Eric: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the
ground covered by a sheet of tarpolin, it was a house
to US.
Graham: We were evicted from our hole in the ground; we
had to go and live in a lake!
Terry J: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a
hundred and fifty of us living in a shoebox in the
middle of the road.
Michael: Cardboard box?
Terry J: Aye.
Michael: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a
paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up
at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust
of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen
hours a day week in week out, for sixpence a week. When
we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his
belt!
Graham: Luxury! We used to have to get out of the lake
at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a
handful of hot gravel, work twenty hour a day at the
mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would
thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were
LUCKY!
Terry J: Well of course, we had it tough. We used to
have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at
night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had
half two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours
a day at the mill for sixpence every four years, and
when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a
bread knife.
Eric: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten
o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed,
drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a
day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to
come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our
Mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing "Hallelujah."
Michael: And you try and tell the young people today
that... and they won't believe ya'.
All: They won't..