Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Musics the Very Best Thing

Music's the Very Best Thing

Music's the Very Best Thing

When I was a young lad just barely thirteen
The fiddle I learned how to play
I'd bring it to sessions in houses and pubs
And the old men would soon let me stay
Even shared
A few tunes on the way

Now my fiddle had come from an uncle who'd died
It was years since the strings were all new
And the bow had the shape of a tinker's old horse
With most of the hair missing too
But it played
And the tuning was true

cho: And I'll never forget in my longest of years
     The feeling that music could bring
     God made women and whiskey and little white lambs
     But music's the very best thing of them all
     Yes, music's the very best thing!

In my travelling time I learned hundreds of tunes
Maybe one out of ten with a name
My fingers were strong and the strings mostly new
But the old tinker's bow was the same
Always ready
To take all the blame

When the old men passed on,
There'd be tears at the wake
Mourning too for the tunes that had died
We had learned what they let us
And asked them for more
But the best ones they kept deep inside
Near the heart
Never sharing their pride

But for each who departs, there's another arrived
Who receives all the gifts handed down
From young men and old, and the good ladies too
In city and county and town
- May they live
In fame and renown!

May God keep us safe, and our music tonight
Be a prayer that he'll grant to us all
That some bright happy day we're together again
At a session in Heaven's best hall
Lots of room
For the great and the small!

c 1991 Sunphone Ltd.
Z
oct97