Sixty Quid A Week

Lyrics

Don’t you feel guilty when you meet
Some poor soul begging in the street?
The other night I’m hurrying home
From Waterloo when from the gloom
An apparition gaunt and grey
Limped towards me, barred my way.
He wanted money, yes, but worse
This stranger wanted to converse.
.He spoke to me as to a friend
And laid his life out end to end.

He’d been a window cleaner all
his life until he’d had a fall
Broke both his legs, was still in pain
They said he’d never work again.
His wife was dead, his children gone
Abroad somewhere, he lived alone
On sixty quid a week, ’That’s what
I get,’  he said,  ‘My friend it’s not
Enough to keep a  man alive.
See how I’m struggling to survive.’

‘Ive always worked, I’m proud to say,
I’ve paid my taxes, paid my way
But now I’m on the scrapheap so
I must be punished, pushed so low
They’ve taken everything from me
My self-respect, my dignity –
On 60 quid a week, I try
To manage but there’s food to buy
And heating bills, it goes so fast
My two weeks’ money doesn’t last.’

‘Before the fortnight’s up, my friend
I’m skint, I’ve nothing left to spend.
Can’t even buy a loaf of bread
On sixty quid a week,’ he said.
I’d like to see that Tory prat
That arrogant slimeball live on that.’
He looked at me and clutched my arm
He said ‘I don’t mean any harm
But could you spare a coin or two?’
‘No change,’  I said,  which wasn’t true.

But,look, there’s no use blaming me
I’m not a walking charity.

‘Blame the government,’ I said.
‘I do,’he said. ’That lot, they’ve bled
Me dry, they must have hearts of stone.
Their cuts have cut me to the bone.
I hate that Cameron,rat-faced  phoney.
Tell me, how did he get his money?
Talks like he’s Lord God on high
And every word’s a fucking lie.
And Osborne, evil little git
And him, that useless piece of shit –
What’s his name? Clegg. Rich bastards all
I’d line them up against the wall
And shoot them. They should rot in hell.
They think they have the right to tell
People  like us how we should live.
And that, my friend, I can’t forgive.’

I reached into my pocket found
Two coins, twenty P, one pound.
Her took the money, thanked me.  ‘When
This money’s gone,’ I said.  ‘What then?’
‘When you’re living on the edge,’  he said,
‘It doesn’t do to look ahead.
But if prices go up any higher
I might just set myself on fire.
He limped away into the gloom.
I wished him luck and hurried home.

Don’t you feel guilty when you meet
Some poor sod begging in the street?