When You’ve Got To Go Spend A Penny! - James Willis

This piece was written as a spoken satire. I subsequently realised it could be performed as a ‘Talking Blues’, with guitar accompaniment in flat picking style. Further, it could be performed as a musical satire in cabaret or as ‘Lounge’ entertainment with piano. James Willis.

When You’ve Got To Go Spend A Penny! - James Willis

The dearest loo in the whole damned nation
I thought the one in Victoria Station
It boasts by far an extortionate fee
For it’s twenty P to have a wee!

There’s turnstiles…………
No change machine……….
You can’t even sneak in the ladies………..

It seems to me
When I was wee
I could have twenty wees
for twenty P!

That’s inflation………..
Liquidity……….
Bladder splitting……..
Cross legged people on the trains!

What’s even more of a sensation
When I do a further calculation
Twenty P was four bob, you see
….That’s 48 ‘d’
Four dozen wees for twenty P!

At one a day…………….
A pound lasted eight months………..
A year was one pound fifty………….
Today it would only stretch to seven-and-a-half days…….

But things get even more sinister
For there’s a loo or two down at Westminster
Where they have the cheek
To charge ten bob to take a leak.

They have a special offer …….
Two for the price of one……
Buy one, get one free!!!
Have one now, save one for later!

But all of that gets a little bit blurred
When I get some news that’s totally absurd!
I’m told, at Harrod’s, if you need to get rid
It’s goin’ to cost you all of a quid!

Twenty shillings…….
Two hundred and forty ‘d’……
A nicker………
That’s wet!

That’s taking the P*** !!

James Willis