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As Safe as a House

from CURLY'S AIRSHIPS by JUDGE SMITH

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lyrics

CURLY:-
There was the devil and all to pay.
The alleged 'designers'
Only had one card left to save the game:
Bring her in and cut the brute in half,
Put in another gas bag,
Make her even longer.
And with only three months to do it in,
The fun became fast and furious...

Cutting the Lady in Half,
Devilish tricky,
Took off our coats and worked like hell
And a bit over.
Took longer than they thought,
Same way it always does.
It would be a close run thing
If she'd be ready.

'Cause her cover had gone all rotten
Where the comic boffins had doped it up
In a new and different way.
Couldn't these birds do anything right?

They had to replace this mouldy cloth,
All five or six acres of it,
But there wasn't time to do it all
For our October deadline.
Well, that was what they said,
But they still seemed to find the time
To lay down half a ton of carpet
Specially ordered by request
Of Baron Thompson.

This had to be quite barmy;
We were doing all this
Just to make her light,
And now they're weighing her down again.
Somebody's mad here, perhaps it's me...

She still hadn't got a Certificate
Of Airworthiness,
And now the Safety Inspector
Dug his heels in.
He didn't like the pads,
All four thousand of them,
That we'd wrapped round the sharp bits
That were making the holes,
And he wanted proper tests
In her new extended form,
Otherwise, No Dice.
But the Air Ministry overruled him;
You could almost hear them...

CHAIRMAN:-
If you ask me, some of our flying chaps
Are getting to be real old women.

SENIOR COMMITTEEMAN:-
Over cautious.

JUNIOR COMMITTEEMAN:-
Safety mad.

CHAIRMAN:-
I had it from the Minister himself,
She's as safe as a house...

CURLY:-
The Inspector chap was due to fly with us,
But he had the sense to catch the 'flu
So he couldn't go.
We should all have done the same;
We knew it was madness,
But no one spoke up;
No one was willing to blow the whistle.
Truth was we were scared of Thompson,
Scared of losing our own,
And everyone else's, jobs,
Scared of ratting, scared of funking,
Too scared to be anything else
But jolly brave.
Only 'Bird' Irwin had the guts
To make a stand...

credits

from CURLY'S AIRSHIPS, released April 10, 2020
Vocal Credits:-
CURLY - JUDGE
THE CHAIRMAN - ARTHUR BROWN
THE JUNIOR COMMITTEEMAN - NICK LUCAS
THE SENIOR COMMITTEEMAN - DAVID SHAW-PARKER

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JUDGE SMITH Glastonbury, UK

Judge Smith co-founded the band Van der Graaf Generator in 1967 with Peter Hammill, & has since been involved in many music projects as writer, composer or performer. He has written stage musicals, classical & rock libretti, songs for television & a book on Life after Death; directed a prize-winning short film, & released fourteen CDs & two DVDs. He was born in 1948 & lives near Glastonbury, UK. ... more

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