| I thought the streets were paved with gold
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| I always thought my fortune flowed
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| All along the River Thames
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| From Westminster to Southend
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| Into the sea
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| I thought I’d find it at the heart
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| Of every garden and Royal Park
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| Where money grows on trees
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| Beneath the moon that’s made of cheese
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| But the ground beneath my feet
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| Was just tarmac and concrete
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| The road sticking to my Converse
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| As it melted in the heat
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| Of a muggy Monday morning
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| Through the smog of global warming
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| The sun would not be blocked
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| By any cream bought from a shop
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| On a busy London high street
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| That looked just like any other
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| As it was filmed from every angle
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| For a voyeuristic Big Brother
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| The opening of another
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| Tesco Metro supermarket
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| Girls leaving the Body Shop
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| For the nearest Golden Arches
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| And if a horror film or snuff movie
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| Was captured on the cameras
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| It could be used in court as evidence
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| Which didn’t mean much to the families
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| In a crematorium where the left side
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| Of the stereo wasn’t working
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| For the song that played as it conveyed
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| The coffin through the curtains
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| Using all my cartoon superpower
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| I scaled the face of St. Stephen’s Tower
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| And looking down across my manor
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| Unfurled my stupid protest banner
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| The tourists watching from the wheel
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| With their camera phones and Happy Meals
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| Suspected a PR stunt
|
| And secretly they hoped I’d jump
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| And break my neck but not be killed
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| On the electric fence that had just been built
|
| If we keep the terrorists at bay
|
| Maybe they’ll just go away
|
| And leave us to mount our challenge
|
| To all the Americans who thought
|
| Our service could never be as lousy
|
| As the service in New York
|
| At fifteen minutes to the hour
|
| I climbed down from St. Stephen’s Tower
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| For cigarettes and Lucozade
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| For the police and the fire brigade
|
| Dr. Samuel Johnson
|
| You were very nearly right
|
| I was tired of London
|
| But I would never tire of life
|
| Mighty Mouse is on his way
|
| Here I come to save the day
|
| From the tower of Big Ben
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| Flying south across the Thames
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| Faster than the speed of sound
|
| High above the Underground
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| With my supermarket bag
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| Just another cartoon dad
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| In London town |