There’s no end of songs about ‘drink’ as potential candidates to match Helen’s theme this week, including more than several from what you might call my ‘usual suspects’ rota of artistes. This time, however, I’m going for somebody who hasn’t featured here before: Elton John.

This song – which comes from the album ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, a record I once owned – always struck me as a quintessential anthem for what, forty and more years ago, would have been called British (it’s most definitely quintessentially British) working-class youth.

Very catchy too.

It’s getting late have you seen my mates
Ma tell me when the boys get here
It’s seven o’clock and I want to rock
Want to get a belly full of beer

My old man’s drunker than a barrel full of monkeys
And my old lady she don’t care
My sister looks cute in her braces and boots
A handful of grease in her hair

Don’t give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night’s alright for fighting
Get a little action in

Get about as oiled as a diesel train
Gonna set this dance alight
‘Cause Saturday night’s the night I like
Saturday night’s alright alright alright

Well they’re packed pretty tight in here tonight
I’m looking for a dolly who’ll see me right
I may use a little muscle to get what I need
I may sink a little drink and shout out, “She’s with me!”

A couple of the sounds that I really like
Are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike
I’m a juvenile product of the working class
Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass

Don’t give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night’s alright for fighting
Get a little action in

Words by Bernie Taupin, music by Elton John

Song Lyric Sunday 5 August 2018