Poor Old Heap

Charles Macfarlane

Oh they say the old heap will fail MOT ...
CH: And we say so and we hope so!
Because of its sills being so rusty ...
CH: Oh poor old heap!

It's as rusty as a nail in the scrapyard door,
And it ain't worth it being repaired any more.

With its agony seat and its wobbling wheels,
And its flat battery and fan-belt squeals.

With its engine and driveshafts all running rough,
And its blown-out exhaust going chuff, chuff, chuff!

So it's down the long and the winding road,
That is to say, if we can get ourselves towed.

So its after years of much abuse,
We'll break it down for spare parts use.

We'll sell off the gearbox and the four wheel hubs,
And paint the wheels and the tyres up as white flower tubs.

So we'll part with this junk without a tear in our eyes,
And send it off to the scrapyard in the skies.

But the scrapyard man comes to look at our old bus,
He shakes his head, "It's no use to us!"

So when the brakes failed at Sidmouth Quay,
We dropped it down to the bottom of sea.

1990

Written after an horrendous experience of trying to get a car through MOT from a starting point of it being a rust-heap and us having no money.

My ex-wife and I used to do this one together, she may have contributed some of the words.

The last verse would be written for the particular venue.

This is, of course, a send up of, and therefore to the tune of, the well known shanty 'Poor Old Horse'.  If you want the traditional lyrics, they're at Mudcat.

Creative Commons Licence Copyright of this work is held by Charles Macfarlane, who licenses it under a Creative Commons Licence (Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales)