A Drinking Song

Back at the house a bottle is found

and opened in honour of those who have drowned

While we who have not are stricken with guilt

and dutifully see that not one drop is spilt

We're drinking to life, we're drinking to death

We're drinking 'till none of our livers are left

We're winding our way down to the spirit store

We'll drink 'till we just can't drink any more

Raise your glasses high!

Drink the cellar dry!

Well bloody my nose and blacken my eye

If it ain't some young turk in search of a fight

And Chanticleer's chest is sagging with pride

for honour has yet to be satisfied

Well heaven be thanked we live in an age

where no man need bother except on the stage

With Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

and definitely not tonight...

I can still remember

when I was just a kid

I was free to do what I wanted to

but never ever did

And now with years of discretion reached may we not forget

Liberte Egalite Fraternite

For there's life in the old world yet

There'll always be an England

an Ireland and our France

A Lichtenstein and Finland

For we have only one chance

Then this young man with an unhealthy tan

puts a drink in my hand and says I understand

You're in search of a place to continue the chase

of the heavenly taste I suggest in that case

That you all come with me to my place by the sea

where the glasses shall be overflowing with free

alcoholic delights (and free love if you like)

For what point has this life if you can't realise your dreams?

Raise your glasses high!

And drink the town dry!

We'll drink beyond the boundaries of sense

We'll drink 'till we start to see lovely pink elephants

Inside our heads, inside our beds, inside the threads of our pyjama legs

So don't shoot 'till you see the reds of our eyes

And an army of elephants marching behind

From the day I was born 'till the night I will die

All my lovers will be pink and elephantine!