Full Lyrics
GLENEAGLE PIE
(or the Cautionary Tale of Quentin King)
I’m sure you remember Henry King* –
The child who chewed little bits of string?
But did you know that he had a brother?
A lad who, in truth, was a bit of a duffer.
Young Quentin ate almost anything.
Doorknobs, spiders, and of course, string.
But his great love by far,don’t ask me why
Was a handsome and glorious Gleneagle Pie.
He’d have it for breakfast, he’d have it for tea.
For dinner in Clacton and lunch in Dundee.
He once went to Cairo to eat it with goat
But never went back ‘cause it stuck in his throat.
(That’s the goat not the Pie, please note.)
Now a Gleneagle Pie has a golden brown crust
Made of Syrup of Figs and a handful of rust.
But the filling is where its true character lies,
It’s the filling that makes them Gleneagle Pies.
Tigers and scissors, apples and hats,
Windows and paper and seasalt and sprats.
Canaries and brickdust, lipstick and fleas,
Trousers and dinnergongs and pillows and peas.
But let us return to the young lad called Quentin,
The boy endowed with unusual intestine.
To show him their love, his parents would feed
Their hapless young son so much more than he’d need.
So as soon as one Pie had gone down the hatch
Another would follow for him to despatch.
And while Mother was baking twenty Pies more
Father supplied her with the roof and front door.
Now alas I must tell you young Quentin’s no more.
When he got out of bed, he fell through the floor.
He rolled down the street, ‘cross the beach to the sea
Where he drowned at exactly twenty past three.
The moral of this story is plain to see:
Never eat Pies for luncheon and tea.
And always reflect on the possible sequel
Of eating those Pies by the name of Gleneagle.
* Henry King by Hilaire Belloc (1907)
