The Only Way to Win

Just airing another oldie, from 1972

I’ve said before that I’d like to go

In the clash and the grate of gears,

Not a lingering death in the early spring

In a room of a thousand tears,

But a leap of light on a winter’s night

The scream of a speed machine,

That last long terrible, deadly thrill

And a curse with my eyes a-gleam,

From a mountain road in the murk and mist

With never a soul to say:

‘He looked like a man in a crazy dream

With the Devil and all to pay’,

Or rapping it out on a Besa twin

To the top, or over the ton,

And taking a dive on the ocean road

In the early morning sun.

 

It’s ever the way of the working man

Who toils and swears unblest,

To let his brass and his sorrows fall

On a less than virgin breast,

To take a w***e to the razz-matazz

Of the local city scene,

And never enquire as she jazzes off

With whom, or where she’s been,

But lives for money and lives for kicks

And lives for a drunken spree,

And lives for the day the Eagle spits,

And lives for the used to be.

 

For the used to be and the might have been

And the could be, even still,

If the lottery picks the in-between

Or the jockey makes a kill,

But the years roll on and a thousand dreams

Despair in the morning light,

And the hopes and schemes are laid to rest

In the everlasting night,

And a mind that tires of the constant debt

Slips off to its own retreat,

In a frigid flat with a

Frigid wife on little downhill street,

For the only joy is the chrome machine

That sits outside the door,

That gathers dust and the neighbours lust

And a monthly bill, (for sure).

 

The poor get poor and the rich get rich

In the way that it’s always been,

For I’ve never seen a poor man rich

Or a rich man in-between,

And the only everlasting life

For the working man today,

Is the everlasting overdraft,

And the everlasting pay,

For only the rich can afford to buy

Their way to the Pearly Gates,

While the rest of us must scrimp

And steal, and save for the water rates,

Though I still believe, oh I still believe

In a God that’s just and fair,

I only ask if he gave us up

Or turned and left us here.

 

'God be good to my overdraft and

Help me along the way…'

Well, what do you want from a working man,

Just what did I oughter say,

What did my kids ‘ave done to you

To merit their lives ahead,

A fight and a scramble for lousy jobs

And the coin for their daily bread,

We don’t get mannah from heaven now

As they did in the days of old

And the meek that inherit the earth today

Can only be paid in gold,

So give me a ride on a Bonneville

Or a drag on a Besa twin,

And I’ll take it up to the mountain top

In the only way to win.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[THE BLACK SEAL]

i really enjoyed the humour of this one. it is an oldie but the words could still ring true