Lyrics:

You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office
Not hard enough for the hod
You'd rather be riding your Norton
Or going fishing with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job

When your grammar school days were over
It was nineteen-seventeen
And you did the right and proper thing
You were just eighteen
You were never mentioned in dispatches
You never mentioned what you did or saw
You were just another keen young man
In the mud and stink of war

You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office
Not hard enough for the hod
You'd rather be singing the Pirate King
Or going fishing with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job

You came home from the Great War
With the pips of a captain's rank
A German officer's Luger
And no money in the bank
Your family sent you down in the coal mine
To learn to be captain there
But you didn't stand it very long
You needed the light and the air

You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office
Not hard enough for the hod
You'd rather be watching performers fly
Or fishing with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job

When the second war came along
You knew what should be done
You would re-enlist to teach young men
The booby trap and the gun;
And they sent you home to Yorkshire
With a crew and a Lewis gun
So you could save your seaside town
From the bombers of the Hun

You were never any good with money

You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office
Not hard enough for the hod
You'd rather be finding the nightjar's nest
Going fishing with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job

And when my mother came to your door
With a baby in her arm
Her big hurt boy only nine years old
Trying to keep her from harm
If you had been a practical man
You would have been forewarned
You would have seen that it never could work
And I would have never been born

There's no proper work in your seaside town
So you come here looking for a job
You were storeman at the power station
Just before I came along
Nobody talked about how you quit
But I know that's what you did
My mother said you were a selfish man
And I was your selfish kid

You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office
Not hard enough for the hod;
And your Norton it was soon gone
Along with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job

You showed me eyebright in the hedgerow
Speedwell and travellers joy
You showed me how to use my eyes
When I was just a boy;
And you taught me how to love a song
And all you knew of nature's ways:
The greatest gifts I have ever known
And I use them every day

You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job
Not steady enough for the office, maybe
Not hard enough for the hod
You'd rather be riding your Norton
Or going fishing with your split cane rod
You were never any good with money
You couldn't even hold a job