Tim Minchin
Greed (Balsa Wood and Glue)
When I was a young chap, just a little bouncing boy
My family was not wealthy so I had to make do
With secondhand pyjamas and a single wooden toy:
A dinosaur my daddy made with balsa wood and glue
But when I turned thirteen and to high school off I trotted
I knew immediately that my dino wouldn't do
'Cause I had noticed all the toys the other boys had gotted
And I couldn't help myself, I wished that I had got them, too
My daddy made a dinosaur with balsa wood and glue
But before too long I knew that my dino wouldn't do
When I was fifteen years old, I first turned to thieving
To satiate my craving to have things the other kids had
I stole a gnarly skateboard from a skateboard shop one evening
It had bodacious fluoro railing and a wicked fluoro skidpad
By the following Monday morning, the skateboardin' turned to boredom
My appetite for skating was abating in a flash
So I sold my board and bought a pair of flippers and a snorkel
But soon I balked at snorkelling, forked my snorkel in the trash
My daddy made a dinosaur with balsa wood and glue
But before too long I knew that my dino wouldn't do
At eighteen I managed hedge funds and got fat by drinking beer
At twenty I owned seven cars and houses on the coast
I fell in love at twenty-three with a Swedish girl called Mia
I bought a 200-quid toaster, with which Mia made me toast
At twenty-eight I went through, like, a Buddhist kind of thing
And decided that the material world and I were through
I hooked up with some Buddhist chicks who said that they were twins
But they didn't look that similar, and they did stuff twins don't do
My daddy made a dinosaur with balsa wood and glue
But before too long I knew that my dino wouldn't do
But now I'm forty-seven stone and thirty-one years old
I have a kitchen staff of twelve on call twenty-four hours a day
And a Page Three girl I pay to lick chocolate from my folds
And a rent boy called Llywelyn, though I'm neither Welsh nor gay
Now to those who judge my lifestyle to be gluttonous and brash
And criticize my excess acquisition and consumption
I say that critics of the wealthy are just those who don't have cash
And who have never had a prostitute spread marmite on their scrotum
My daddy made a dinosaur with balsa wood and glue
But before too long I knew that my dino wouldn't do
My father died a year ago; to dust he's now returned
And I found my wooden dinosaur which all these years has lasted
And I cremated it and put it with dad's ashes in an urn
Below a gravestone with three words on it:
"Stingy fucking bastard"
My daddy made a dinosaur with balsa wood and glue
Which is all very quaint, but I'd rather eat foie gras inside a Porsche