|
And Then We Wrote...
At the Drop of Hat
At the Drop of Another Hat
The Bestiary
Tried by the Centre Court
EPs
Other albums
Alphabetical index
Home
|
|
|
|
Excelsior
Sherpa sir? Sherpa sir? Sherpa?
Everest, lady? Straight through the monastery
garden and first on the right-you can't miss it.
There's a little brown-eyed Sherpa to the north of Khatmandu
Who was with them when they made the great ascent;
'Tis a triumph that I share,
I can tell them: I was there!
But I couldn't be more sorry that I went.
It's all right for the Tiger of the Snows, the celebrated
Sherpa Tensing, otherwise known as Tensing Norky, or
Sirdar Bhotia Norky Tensing, or, as we call him in the
Khumbu, 'Fancy pants'. It's all right for him! He goes
up and down Everest like a yo-yo, or as you call it in
English, 'Lift'.
But I've no head for heights;
I can't sleep at nights;
It's been stark staring horror for me
1933- 1935- 1936 -1938
1951 - 1952 - 1953! Oh ...
Year after year, September or June,
Just at the end of the dreary monsoon,
A horrible rumour would run round the plain
Everest calling Tensing again!
When Tensing hears Everest calling
He drags us up time after time;
Oh life in Nepal's been appalling
For Sherpas with no wish to climb.
Up we all go according to plan.
I have to carry the oxygen can.
With ice-falls to camp on and cramp in your crampon
Everest calling Tensing again!
Sure enough this year he comes bouncing into the
village, shouting-'Everybody up Everest!
Last one up's a Sherpa!'
Camp One! No fun!
Camp Two! What to do?
Camp Three! Too high for me!
Up 9000 feet to Camp Four. Only 2000 and 2 feet more!
The Western Cwm! I want me moom!
The Lhotse! Oh, the pain in me tootsie!
The South Col! I'm very unwoll!
To the summit! No! I won't, dummit!
Yes Tensing hears Everest calling;
I bear him no malice for that,
Though he called me a twerp when I told him some Sherpas
Prefer it down here where it's fla-
tAnd I might have cracked back,
'I'm a man, not a Yak'.
I'll tremble no more at that haunting refrain
Everest calling Tensing again!
There's a broken-winded Sherpa who is back in Khatmandu;
As a climber he is just an also-ran,
And India and Nepal
Have no use for him at all-
Both try to palm him off on Pakistan.
So a frozen-footed Sherpa's on the Road to Mandalay
Though he knows the Himalayas back to front.
If you want a repetition
Of that sort of expedition-
You're a better man than I am, Colonel Hunt!
It always ends up Welsh, doesn't it?
Originally from the album 'And The We Wrote...'.
|
|
