Lyrics

Daddy lost our pub in a poker game
Sold to the gentleman in his cigar haze
Well a kinder man might have felt some shame
But you paid your debts in those days

While Daddy’s playing deuces wild
Mother calmly showed me how to bathe the child
Then she left me with her sons to raise
I was twelve years old, in those days

Roof top to the bottle tops
He gambled off the whole damn lot
Slammed it down with a double shot
Generations of working hard
And he lost it all on a deck of cards
Oh Daddy, what have you done

Well he paid his penance on the railway line
He laid those tracks ‘til he was sixty nine
And I slowly watched my childhood die as I worked all day
Just to stay alive