Rum, Sodomy & The Lash lyrics

McCormack and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed
There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head
There's devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands
You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands

When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph. down in Cologne
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone

When I first came to London I was only sixteen
With a fiver in my pocket and my ole dancing bag
I went down to the dilly to check out the scene
And I soon ended up on the old main drag

There the he-males and the she-males paraded in style
And the old man with the money would flash you a smile
In the dark of an alley you'd work for a fiver

instrumental

One summer evening drunk to hell
I stood there nearly lifeless
An old man in the corner sang
Where the water lilies grow
And on the jukebox Johnny sang
About a thing called love
And it's how are you kid and what's your name
And how would you bloody know?
In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky
I lay down on the ground
And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around

Well Jimmy played harmonica in the pub where I was born
He played it from the night time to the peaceful early morn
He soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn
And they all looked very happy in the morning

Now Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours
Where the elephant man broke strong men's necks
When he'd had too many Powers

[The Pogues' Version]
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Oh my name is Jock Stewart
I'm a canny gun man
And a roving young fellow I've been
So be easy and free
when you're drinking with me
I'm a man you don't meet every day

I have acres of land
I have men at command
I have always a shilling to spare
So be easy and free
when you're drinking with me

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

Clouds a drifting across the moon
Cats a prowling on their beat
Spring's a girl in the street at night
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

I heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town

[The Pogues' Version]
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Jesse James we understand
Has killed many a man
He robbed the Union trains
He stole from the rich
and gave to the poor
He'd a hand and a heart
and a brain

Now Jesse had a wife
Lived a lady all her life
And children they were brave
But history does record
That Bob and Charlie Ford
Have laid poor Jesse in his grave

Billy ran around with the rare old crew
And he knew an Arsenal from Tottenham blue
We'd be a darn sight better of if we knew
Where Billy's bones are resting now
Billy saw a copper and he hit him in the knee
And he took him down from six foot to five foot three
Then he hit him fair and square in the do-re-mi
That copper won't be having any family

Hey Billy son where are you now

The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts,
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights.

Navigator, Navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite

It's of a gentleman soldier as a sentry he did stand
He saluted a fair maiden by a waving of his hand
And then he boldly kissed her and he passed it off as a joke
He drilled her up in a sentry box wrapped up in a soldier's cloak

And the drums are going a rap a tap tap
And the fifes they loudly play
Fare thee well, Polly me dear
I must be going away

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be
done

[Instrumental]