Track 09
Buses
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09 Buses 1969
A jolly Cockney ditty from East Ham just before going up to Cambridge. Always very popular at the Red Cow, but probably the song I’ve played in the most places… East Ham/Ilford folk clubs, Dulwich poetry club, Cambridge balls, the ‘varsity’ folk club match at Oxford, Goldsmiths’ College club, assorted youth hostels across France… Once requested by a Cambridge fan who’d brought her short-sighted friend Claire along especially…
I’d always offer a pint to anyone who could tell me why it was called buses… The only person to get it (at Dulwich) was ILEA’s English inspector… (E-mail me at martin@stirrup.free-online.co.uk if you think you know or wish for elucidation!)
Well I woke up this morning and in between me yawning
Got out of bed and fell downstairs
Surprise surprise a letter and what’s even better
It said right on the back from Claire
I thought it was all over and she’d moved to Dover
But the postmark on the stamp said Bow
But as sleep my mind released I tore it into pieces
What that bitch said I didn’t want to know
Later I repented although my mind resented this reminder of a painful night
I stuck it back together and found sh’d asked me whether
we could meet again and put things right
And so I wrote a letter first class post and then thought better
So I stuck a fourpenny stamp on top
I mustn’t look to keen though she’s the best I’ve ever seen
Or else she’ll call the whole thing off
I said I’d see he Monday but I arrived on Sunday
And pitched me tent there in the park
All day long I waited sat and contemplated till she arrived just after dark
And there among the grass roots bovver boys and tuff boots
We stayed for several months till fall
When after sleeping all one night I saw her by daylight
And found it wasn’t Claire at all
And so I thought I’d better write another letter
To find out what she did that night
I thought there might have been another tent out on the green
I knew that she had poor eyesight
But no she had been joking at her letter I was choking
And the PS just said ‘Ha Ha!’
So I went to the park back to the girl ther in the dark
She’s the second best girl by far