The Fatal Glass - Tom Paxton

Now there once was a young man, and he came to the big city

Seeking a lucrative position commensurate with his talents

And he walked the streets all day and he couldn’t find a job

Till at last he secured employment working in a stone quarry with all the other

college graduates

And one evening after work, they lured him into a saloon

And they urged him to drink a glass of beer

But he said he wouldn’t do it for he’d made a promise to his mother

That he’d never touch a glass containing an alcoholic beverage

Well, they laughed and they jeered, they called him a coward

Till at last he raised and drained the fatal glass

And when he’d seen what he had done, he dashed the glass against the bar

And rushed from the saloon with a terrible case of delirium tremens

And the first one that he saw was a Salvation Army lady

And with one kick he broke her tambourine

While all she said was «Heaven bless you», and placed a mark upon his brow

With a kick she had learned before she was saved

So the moral of this story is to shun the fatal glass

And don’t go around kicking other people’s tambourines