Must get our dates right, mustn’t we?
Now, did you say 1973?
How time fades into a blink.
No, don’t tell me. Let me think. Ah yes,
wasn’t that when President Watergate
began to drown himself in a pool of tape,
while Vietnam’s eyes reddened the globe?
And somewhere, I remember, somebody
was killing somebody softly with a song.
Now a song would hardly scare a mugger.

In those days we clung to the hope
of the first of the last of the summer wine
and did our best to look on the bright side
of the dark side of the moon.
Pink Floyd, wasn’t it? Saw him once on telly,
gutting a fish. My God, how times change.
Yes, it’s all coming back to me. Back then,
we believed comets made breaking news,
and he who turned the water into vino
was turning into a billboard superstar.

The memory’s not what it used to be.
But I can still tell nought from zero.
Zero . . . you know . . . wasn’t he the one
who burnt while Rome fiddled?