A Transport of Delight

Good evening Need I introduce the piano, the well-known pianist, composer Linguist also contains lanolin, Donald Swann I must be Michael Flanders; we write songs Donald Swan here writes the music, I write the words Some of these songs you may possibly have heard in reviews Like Glyne Bourne and so on. Others Others you're less likely to have heard unless you patronise this Palace of Culture before We've written the ones we like to sing ourselves That's what we're still going to do We feel we're following this trend towards simplification in the theatres, you know There have been reviews without scenery, there have been reviews without costume This is a review without scenery, without costumes, without costumes Except what Moss Bross is very kind and loan-less Even without a cast, which does make everything very much easy, we find also cheaper This is, at the backyard I draw your attention to it, it's not a curtain It's a photograph of a curtain by Tony Armstrong Jones Welcome Welcome from Bethibas to our ferago E-carts are imperfections with your thoughts, to coin a phrase Think, think when we talk of horses That you see them printing their proud hoofs on the receiving earth Don't think we do actually talk of horses This song isn't about horses This one is about buses Well, buses we've all seen Great big red things rushing about We have one outside here actually about 20 minutes ago Did you see it? (I did, yeah) With private on it, looking very lost I can remember when it was a general This was long, uh If you laugh and applaud, it means you're terribly old And we have to go terribly slowly today Omnibus, my friend, Mr Swann, informs me, comes from the Latin, omnibus Meaning two or four, by, with, or from everybody, which is a very good description This, uh, well, this song is, uh, about a bus It's wittily subtitled, I thought of this, A Transport Of Delight Some people like a motorbike Some say "A tram for me!" Or for bonnie army lorry They'd lay them down and dee Such means of locomotion Seem rather dull to us The driver and conductor of A London omnibus Hold very tight please, ting ting! Hold very tight please, ting ting! When you are lost in London And you don't know where you are You'll hear my voice a-calling "Pass further down the car!" And very soon you'll find yourself Inside the terminus In a London Transport, diesel-engined Ninety-seven horsepower omnibus Along the Queen's great highway I drive my merry load At twenty miles per hour In the middle of the road We like to drive in convoys We're most gregarious The big six-wheeler, scarlet-painted London Transport, diesel-engined Ninety-seven horsepower omnibus Earth has not anything to show more fair Mind the stairs lady! Mind the stairs! Mind the stairs! Earth has not anything to show more fair Any more fares? (Any more fares?) Any more fares? Any more fares? Any more fares? When cabbies try to pass me Before they overtakes I sticks me flippin' hand out As I jams on all me brakes Then jackal taxi drivers Can only swear and cuss Behind that monarch of the road Observer of the highway code That big six-wheeler, scarlet-painted London Transport, diesel-engined Ninety-seven horsepower omnibus I stops when I'm requested Although it spoils the ride So he can shout "Get out of it! "We're full right up inside" We don't ask much for wages We only want fair shares So cut down all the stages And stick up all the fares If tickets cost a pound apiece Why should you make a fuss? It's worth it just to ride inside That thirty-foot-long by ten-foot-wide Inside that monarch of the road Observer of the highway code That big six-wheeler, scarlet-painted London Transport, diesel-engined Ninety-seven horsepower Ninety-seven horsepower omnibus Hold very tight please! It's recently been adopted as the marching song of the Underground Resistance Movement May we ask, could you hear that more or less all right at the top there? All right for quantity There's nothing we can do about the quality at this stage Not until Swann's voice breaks, anyway People make an awful lot of fast nowadays, don't they? About the quality of the sound they listen to, have you noticed? They spend all that time trying to get the exact effect of an orchestra actually playing in their sitting room Personally, I can't think of anything I should hate more Than to have an orchestra actually playing in my sitting room They seem to like it, and it's about them that we've written this next song I mention this in case anyone should think the title is perhaps a little near the bone