The Old Man's Song chords by Paddy Reilly

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Verse 1
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At the turning of the century,
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I was a  lad of five.
My father went off to fight the Boers
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and he never came back alive.
My mother, she had to bring us up,
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no charity she'd seek.
She rubbed and scrubbed
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and scraped along
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on seven and six a week
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At the early age of thirteen years
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I left school and took a job
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I knew my mother could deal
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with the extra couple above
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I know that longer schooling
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would have stood me better stead
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But you can't afford refinements
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while you're struggling for your bread
And when the Great War started,
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well, I didn't hesitate
I took the royal shilling
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and went off to do my bit
We fought in blood and sweat and mud
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for three years or thereabouts
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Then I caught some gas in Flanders
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and got in the lead of doubt
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And when the war was over,
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and we'd settled with the hum,
We went back to our civvies,
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for we'd thought the fighting
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done.
We thought we'd won the
right for peace,
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but there was no such luck,
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For soon we found we had to fight
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for the right to go to work
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In twenty -six the general strike
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saw me out on the street
I had a wife and kids by then
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and their needs were hard to meet
But the brave new world was coming
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with the brotherhood of man
And when the strike was over,
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we were back where we began
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We struggled through the thirties,
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out of work now and again
I saw the blue shirts marching
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and the things  they did in Spain
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They brought me kids up decent
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and they taught them wrong from right
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Hitler was the lad who came
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and showed them how to fight
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My daughter, she's a land girl
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She got married to a Yank
My son, he got a medal
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First up in one of Rommel's tanks
He was wounded near the end of the war
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And he come blessed in Rome
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And he married a night -time nurse
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and never bothered to come home
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My daughter writes me once a week
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a cheerful little note
About her colour telly
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and the other thing she's got
She has a son, a likely lad,
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he's just turned twenty -one
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But now she tells me he's
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been called up at NAMM
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We're living on the pension now
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and it doesn't go too far
Not much to show for a life
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that seems like one long bloody war
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When I think of all the wasted lives,
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it makes me want to cry
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I'm not sure how we'll change things,
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but by Christ we'll have to try