RUFTY TUFTY WORK SONGS OF LIFE ON THE ROAD

Being a horny handed son of toil and a muscle bound donkey strangling hunk of a district councillor, Red Smed has dug deep into his archives and come up with a couple of modern day work songs recollecting his hi-octane life on the roads , pavements and soft grass verges  that IS van driving.

In the depths of Thatcherite repression, Smed worked for the evil Multinational parcel delivering mega-corporation 'Multifreight'. For 13 weeks then was sacked. Ostensibly for wearing IRA badges while delivering to a nuclear power station. Since blown up. 

Smed recalls "I was delivering to Oldbury in Gloucestershire and my mate Dave had bought me a James Connolly badge for my birthday but this eagle eyed security guard spotted it and imediatly realised that my plan was to occupy Stroud Post Office and declare independence for Wessex launching our new fledgling Socialist Republic   in the blood of her martyrs."

Dave, a bastard, remembers it differently. "I just wanted to get him sacked".

Ignoring plain facts, Smed continues, "With 'Multifreight' the tune is lifted from an IWW song about hauling timber somewhere in America that I read about on my mothers knee. She used to write political history on her knees with a felt pen. It may seem odd now , but most of the family did that. But this was in the days before computers, books and television. Lyrically the people are real but I've kept their names instead of making them up so that they can track me down and beat me up".

Having been sacked from Multifreight, Smed couldn't get work for 2 years in the Haulage industry as he was blacklisted by the 'Economic League' who had him down as a 'raving communist' and 'a bit of a twat', however, after changing his CV hobbies and interests to 'Liking Margaret  Thatcher' and 'Thinking of ways to maximise the profits of hard working bosses' he got a job at NJ Singletons where he was the sole workforce under 2 bosses. "This seemed an odd arrangement" Smed ponders    " as their day seemed to finish at 9am and then I did all the work for the rest of the day. But I was just glad to have a job, especially one so important to the health and well being of the Nation as delivering plastic plumbing pipes , vanity units and toilet seats. Without me what would the arseholes of the Nation do!!"

The song 'Bonny Van Driver' tells of Smed's near death driving escapades working for Singletons, and the transport cafes he was compelled to use several times a day. The song is based on a Scottish coalmining song  and is naturally sung in a ridiculous Scottish accent "..to emphasise the horror Dick Gaughan would feel if he ever heard it."

"One of the features of this song is the authentic bagpipe playing in it. The entire Highbridge Bagpipe and Communism Collective  managed to fit into Monkton Heathfield studio, but I was so appalled by the averageness of their performance that I overdubbed them on my melodica. So that's another thing that Sooty can stick up his arse."