Poetry Friday

I'm posting one of my very favourite songs of all time today. It's a sweet and rather haunting song about love and loneliness. It was written by that incomparable duo of old known as Flanders and Swan, and it's called:

The Armadillo

I was taking compass bearings for the Ordinance Survey
On an army training camp on Salisbury plain,
I had packed up my theodolite, was calling it a day,
When I heard a voice that sang a sad refrain:

'Oh, my darling Armadillo,
Let me tell you of my love,
Listen to my Armadillo roundelay;
Be my fellow on my pillow,
Underneath this weeping willow,
Be my darling Armadillo all the day.'

I was somewhat disconcerted by this curious affair,
For a single Armadillo, you will own,
On Salisbury plain, on summer, is comparatively rare,
And a pair of them is practically unknown.
Drawn by that mellow solo,
There I followed on my bike,
To discover what these Armadillo Lovers would be like:

'Oh, my darling Armadillo,
How delightful it would be,
If for us those silver wedding bells would chime,
Let the orange blossoms billow,
You need only say 'I will'-oh,
Be my darling Armadillo all the time.'

Then I saw them in a hollow, by a yellow muddy bank -
An Armadillo singing ... to an armour-plated tank.
Should I tell him, gaunt and rusting, with the willow tree above,
This - abandoned on manoeuvres - is the object of your love?
I left him to his singing,
Cycled home without a pause,
Never tell a man the truth
About the one that he adores
...
For the rest of the song, click here.
If you want to hear some of their work, here are a few YouTube postings: Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud; Have Some Madeira, M'Dear and The Gnu. Just a teenie warning: these videos were made by fans with, err, how shall I put it, more enthusiasm than skill, so you might want to close your eyes when listening. Or even better, go to your local music store and buy a CD of their music. And no, I was not paid to say that!

Poetry Friday is being hosted at AmoXCalli.