[Intro] (Heavy boot stomps: Boom-clap, boom-boom-clap) (Fiddle scrapes a dissonant, frantic melody) (A man grunts and spits) [Verse 1] Old Baron Blackwood is counting his gold While we’re in the pigsty and shivering with cold He’s taxed every window and taxed every door He even put tax on the dirt on the floor But Barnaby Big-Head who talks to the trees Has gathered the village and fell to his knees He’s wearing a bucket and wielding a leek And God help the Baron by Tuesday next week! [Pre-Chorus] (One! Two! Three! Four!) Pick up your shovels and sharpen your shears The man with the smallest of brains has no fears! [Chorus] Oh, we’re marching behind the village buffoon Who’s whistling a flat and a miserable tune With a pitchfork in hand and a pocket of stones We’re coming to rattle the aristocrat’s bones! (Rattle ‘em! Break ‘em!) The taxes are high but our standards are low So follow the idiot wherever he’ll go! [Verse 2] He says that the Baron has taxed our own breath So breathing is basically flirting with death He’s taxed every whisker on Silas’s chin And taxed every drop of the widow’s bad gin Old Barnaby’s plan is a stroke of pure light We’ll moon the taxman in the middle of night With five hundred buttocks all white in the sun He’ll drop all his ledgers and start for a run! [Pre-Chorus] (Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho!) The blacksmith is drunk and the baker is blind But Barnaby’s got a particular mind! [Chorus] Oh, we’re marching behind the village buffoon Who’s whistling a flat and a miserable tune With a pitchfork in hand and a pocket of stones We’re coming to rattle the aristocrat’s bones! (Rattle ‘em! Break ‘em!) The taxes are high but our standards are low So follow the idiot wherever he’ll go! [Bridge] (Tempo slows down, heavy stomps remain) We reached the stone gates of the manor at noon While Barnaby howled like a dog at the moon The Baron looked down from his balcony high And asked why a turnip was hitting his eye (It was Barnaby! He threw it!) The guards had their muskets, the guards had their steel But Barnaby started to spin like a wheel Discharging his bowels in a tactical spray The Baron fell over and fainted away! [Breakdown] (Fiddle solo intensifies into a frantic, chaotic jig) (Sound of breaking glass and cheering) (Group chant: No more pence! No more pounds! Barnaby! Barnaby!) [Final Chorus] Oh, we’re marching behind the village buffoon Who’s whistling a flat and a miserable tune With a pitchfork in hand and a pocket of stones We’ve rattled the aristocrat’s cowardly bones! (Rattle ‘em! Break ‘em!) The taxes are gone and we’re all in the pub The idiot’s king of the local sub-shrub! [Outro] (Slower, rhythmic stomps) Now Barnaby’s sitting on Blackwood’s own chair With gravy and mash in his tangled-up hair (What a hero!) (What a prat!) (Spoken) Does anyone know how to un-tax a goat? (Fiddle ends on a sharp, sour note) (Laughter and the sound of a falling mug)
