We don't know how lucky we are
Me father-in-law's been feeling
pretty pleased with himself:
He's been living in Greece
for the good of his health.
I said, "How was the climate?
And how was your year?"
He says, "The climate's too hot,
you can't get a beer,
The sheilas look like blokes, and of course
the blokes are all queer,
The Turks and the Arabs
well they live far too near
and if you want a really good time,
you might as well live here."
He says: We don't know how lucky we are, Fred
We don't know how lucky we are

I was down the Plough and Chequebook,
the night before last
There's a guy down there on the floor
with his brain at half-mast
I said "You're looking really bad mate
your eyes look like strings"
He says "Get me an eight will you, Fred
I can't see a thing"

We don't know how lucky we are, mate
We don't know how lucky we are,

Me stock agent's got a beach place
where he spends most of his days
His wife bit the dust down there last year
got eaten by a couple of crays
And his two littlest daughters
got killed by a whale
I said "Are you going down there this year mate?"
He says "Fred, right on the nail"
"We don't know how fortunate we are to have that place
We don't know how propitious are the circumstances Frederick"

So if things are looking really bad
you're thinking of givin' it away
Remember New Zealand's a cracker
and I reckon come what may
If things get appallingly bad
and we all get atrociously poor
If we stand in the queue with our hats on
we can borrow a few million more.
We don't know how lucky we are, mate
We don't know how lucky we are.

Fred Dagg, mid 1970's
Indeed we don't, but we are starting to learn.

An ``eight'' is an 8oz jug of beer.

Fred Dagg, aka John Clarke, was a hugely underemployed talent. Spent most of his working life entertaining a larger market across the ditch. A voice from the more innocent 1970's (his character's views on mediterraneans would now be felt to be racist) speaking to us (in 2019) with sobering prescience.
One of his great talents was an ear for NZ vernacular, as in:

We three kings of Orient are
One in a tractor one in a car
One on a scooter
blowing his hooter
following yonder star

Oh, Oh - star of wonder, star of light
star of beauty she'll be right
star of glory
that's the story
following yonder star.

Click here for next week's poem
Click here for last week's poem

Return to Thomas Forster's home page