When that I was and a little, tiny boy,
Me daddy said to me,
'The time has come, me bonny, bonny bairn,
To learn your ABC.'
In the coalfields of the Tyne
And his ABC was different
From the Enid Blyton kind.
That made me the man that I am, and
B's for the Boss who's a Bastard,
A Bourgeois who don't give a damn.
The bosses' reactionary creed, and
D's for Dictatorship, laddie,
But the best proletarian breed.
That workers have suffered so long, and
F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach,
The first one to say it was wrong.
Like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname, and
H is the Hell that they'll go to
When the workers have kindled the flame.
And America's kind is the worst, and
J is for sweet Jingoism,
That the Tories all think of the first.
Who fought out the working class fight, and
L is for Vladimir Lenin,
Who showed him the left was all right.
The daddy and the mommy of them all, and
N is for Nationalisation -
Without it we'd tumble and fall.
That capitalist economy brings, and
P is for all Private Property,
The greatest of all of the sins.
That we'll deal out so well and so soon, when
R for Revolution is shouted and
The Red Flag becomes the top tune.
That gave us all such a bad name, and
T is for Trotsky, the hero,
Who had to take all of the blame.
U's for the Union of Workers -
The Union will stand to the end, and
V is for Vodka, yes, Vodka,
The vun drink that vont bring the bends.
And that's where the memory fades,
For X, Y, and Zed,' my dear daddy said,
'Will be written on the street barricades.'
Me daddy says to me,
'Please try to forget those thing that I said,
Especially the ABC.'
For daddy is no longer a union man,
And he's had to change his plea.
Since they made him a Labour MP.
- Alex Glasgow
