[Bamber]

The Jolly Captain (Jake Thackray)

There once was an old captain who wished nothing more
Than to live again his voyages and walk by the seashore.
A simple man, and a good man, but the bane of his life
Was his ill-tempered, bad-hearted bitch of a wife.
Though the jolly captain was plagued by her bile
He smoked his long pipe and he smiled upon her tenderly.
He didn't like her much, but he'd loved her. Despite her rough tongue
The whey-faced old nag-bag had been his pretty darling once.

She fell down her staircase, she fractured her neck.
She lay upon the linoleum in a black apoplexy.
Her baleful eyes bulged with unspeakable abuse:
It seems that her spleen had been overproducing
So the jolly captain carried her to bed.
"Close your poor eyes," he said, "sleep a little peaceably."
He brought her fresh butter and cool watercress,
Violet and peppermint to soothe her heart's bitterness.

From her death bed she said, "if you marry when I die
"I'll crawl from my coffin to haunt you vexatiously."
With a howl and a scowl, with a shudder and a shake
She spat out her peppermint and went to vex her maker.
Unhappy captain, so sad when she died,
He closed her wild eyes, and he cried a bit on the Friday.
But he saw no good reason for wasting away,
So he married an apple-cheeked girl on the Saturday.

Alas, jolly captain, you're married too soon.
She'll come to torment you from underneath her tombstone.
She'll scratch and she'll claw her way up from the grave,
Hacking her way back again with furious fingernails.
"No," said the jolly captain, "she'll stay in her place.
She can scratch, she can scrape, till she's black in the face.
No, she won't come to haunt me and taunt me, I know,
Cause I buried her face downward, she's a long way to go.
No, she won't come to haunt me and taunt me, I know,
Cause I buried her face downward, she's a long way to go."