Horrible Histories - Charles Dickens Lyrics
I lived a happy life ‘til I was ten years oldWhen debt landed dad in prison and our country houseWas soldLodged with a lady in her London flat so coldWorked at a good polish factory, labelling jars quiteDull be toldGoodness only knowsI was a miserable soulFor a time I went to school but then I found a jobAs a clerk to a lawyer, oh it made my poor head throbI failed to be an actor, despite my loud gobEnded up reporting speeches of the parliamentary mobThen as everybody knowsI started writing prosPut my life into my booksFriends and enemies and crooksLegal bosses of the cropIn “The Old Curiosity Shop”Fagin in “Oliver Twist”A factory pal, you get the gistAnd although my memory’s quite foggyGot Scrooge from the grave of Ebenezer ScroggyMy first book was an overnight sensationBut I drove myself too hard to enjoy the agilationDespite my wealth, my family begged for moneyI wrote of it in “Chuzzlewit” which people said wasFunnyDidn’t sell like books beforeMy family still asked for more“Little Dorrit” is a taleAbout my dad in debtor’s jailWhile “Hard Times” tells my life ‘boutWhen I tried to leave my wife“Little Nell’s” here was my poor dearDeparted sister-in-lawAnd “David Copperfield”, working in a factoryI must confess that that was really meIn my life, felt shamed ‘bout poverty in childhoodWrote about sadness, suffering and fearsAlso wrote about people with funny namesBumble, Smallweed, Scrooge, Uriah HeepAnd Wackford SqueersWhilst writing “Edwin Drood”Train crashed in, helped my moodStill I drove myself onWith readings far across the pondDied before I wrote Drood’s endSomething drove me ‘round the bendSo Dickens, take a dickens, take a bowAnd Heaven knowsI’m miserable now
