The Passing Show - Ian Dury, The Blockheads

When we were simple and naïve

We wore our feelings on our sleeve

As we’ve grown jaded and corrupt

Our manner’s guarded and abrupt

Oh, how we’d smile most readily

Whilst ploughing on unsteadily

Now frowns are etched upon our face

We can no longer stand the pace

Although we’ve got to go, with the passing show

It doesn’t ever mean, we haven’t made the scene

And what we think we know, to what is really so

Is but a smithereen, of what it might have been

We’d sing in gay abandon then

We’d get it wrong and try again

As here we brood with doubts assailed

Nothing ventured, nothing failed

When life itself can chart the course

Then life’s the product we endorse

When circumstances tell of death

We keep our counsel, save our breath

Although we’ve got to go, with the passing show

It doesn’t ever mean, we haven’t made the scene

And what we think we know, to what is really so

Is but a smithereen, of what it might have been

Our laughter rang around the world

When we were happy boys and girls

As now we baulk and hesitate

Encumbrance comes to those who wait

But when we’re torn from mortal coil

We leave behind a counterfoil

It’s what we did and who we knew

And that’s what makes this story true

Although we’ve got to go, with the passing show

It doesn’t ever mean, we haven’t made the scene

And what we think we know, to what is really so

Is but a smithereen, of what it might have been

Although we’ve got to go, with the passing show

It doesn’t ever mean, we haven’t made the scene

And what we think we know, to what is really so

Is but a smithereen, of what it might have been