Bobby Shafto Updated

Bobby Shafto’s home from sea

After massed redundancies at BP

He’s had to sign on at the dole

No longer jobs with Old King Coal

Lining up there with the rest

The North of England so depressed

If your country’s run by millionaires

Why the heck should they care

Just govern by ever open mouth

Platitudes boomed from way down south

foreign seamen cost less for more
so Bobby Shafto’s back on shore

and they shafted Bobby Shafto

He’s not so blonde and he’s not so fair

All his worries causing thinning hair

And he really doesn’t know why

He’s been labelled as work shy

He’s traipsed with despair all over the town

But every employer has turned him down

But he’s not a man to shirk

So he’s involved in voluntary work

Just another victim in the ranks

Of the chaos caused by marauding banks

he came down to Hull to try his hand

fishing quotas all sold to Iceland

a well and truly shafted Shafto

Now Bobby Shafto’s lost his wife

Due to declining standards of life

And Bobby Shafto felt such a louse

When the bank took back his house

Bobby’s in a hostel now

He had to survive somehow

And he’s in a state of tension

Since they went and deferred his pension

But in spite of his declining wealth

He knows it’s all for the nation’s health

so Bobby stands by the Tyne side

now contemplating suicide

in the final shafting of Shafto