The Aardvark Song

Words by Dave Boulton, music by Jeff Parton
Download lyric sheet with chords

An early song from The Pink Album. I was astonished to find I didn’t have a recording of this song and had to beg a copy from friends. Unfortunately, I think this particular copy must have been copied onto wax cylinder at some point because the sound quality isn’t brilliant.

I will try and replace this with an original at some point.

This song came to me early one morning while I was in the shower – I’d got the chorus by the time I was dressed and ready for work. The rest took a while though. I loved Jeff’s tune to this song, a typical Mr P. tune that makes you smile at the way the words sit on the tune. He’s a clever lad for sure.  I still love singing and playing it.

I always loved Flanders and Swann when I was a kid and had heard the Hippopotamus song on children’s favourites when I was a kid. I wonder if that’s what “triggered” the aardvark song. I wasn’t conscious of that being the case but I always wonder where the more random ideas come from.

 

When God made creation, the seas had crustaceans, the dry land had forests and woods,
And very soon mammals like horses and camels came issuing forth from the primeval mud,
And when it was right, He said: Let there be light! and there was, ‘cause he’d left nowt to luck,
And the first thing He sees when He looks down is me, and in His angelic voice he went: Yuk!

Chorus:
It’s aardvark being an aardvark
It’s a lot harder than you might think
A hard uncaring world you’re not really extinct.
No-one says: Oh look, there’s an aardvark!
Like they might do a camel or cat.
They just give us a kick or a poke with a stick,
And they say: What the hell d’you call that?

If you ask a zebra what gives him great pleasure, he might say: Life on the savannah.
Seems he don’t give a toss that he looks like a cross between an old horse and an upright pianna.
When kids at the zoo get their first view of the zebra, they always go: Aah!
But when they see me they react diff’rently, and that is what makes life so hard.

Ask a giraffe and he’ll say it’s no laugh, being twenty foot high is a bind.
Though he sees all the trees with the greatest of ease, he can’t get to scratch his own – well never mind!
And he’ll stamp and say: Heck! It’s a pain in the neck! And I couldn’t say he was wrong.
Wouldn’t you get self-righteous if you got tonsillitis, and your tonsils were ten foot six long?

Now take the hyena, ‘cause he must have been at the back when they gave the brains out.
He’ll giggle all day in that lunatic way, and he hasn’t a clue what he’s laughing about.
There was one got a shock when he fell in the wok in a Chinese café in Bangkok,
But the chef being no ass, simply turned up the gas, and he made a complete laughing stock.

Now your aardvark’s quite mild, he’s not vicious or wild, he’s renowned for being timid and shy,
They don’t go in for fighting or scratching or biting, they won’t armadillo or even a fly,
They’ll run and fetch sticks and do silly tricks, like Lie Down and Play Dead for the King,
And you’d never regret having one as a pet, then there’d be one less of us to sing:

© 1989 His Worship & the Pig