THE MADMEN OF GOTHAM
(Words and music; Colin Reece)

From the albums The Madmen of Gotham by The Bully Wee Band
and Red Wing By Colin Reece

Gotham is a town between Leicester and Nottingham.
The story goes that during, the reign of King John, the King threatened to take away the townsfolk's land to use as hunting ground. This obviously didn't please them too much and so they devised a plan to pretend they were mad in order to put him off. Here are three examples of their fake stupidity.
Anyone who is local to the town of Gotham will notice that I have actually got the pronunciation of the town wrong. It should be pronounced GOAT-HAM, but, speaking as someone who was brought up on Batman and Robin, I'm afraid that by the time I found out, the song was already written.

The cuckoo flew high in the clear summer sky and in the Gotham town bush he did land

He sung a beautiful song and so before very long just how to keep him there the villagers planned

Oh it seemed all good sense for to build round a fence

Oh I swear that I tell you the truth

One last cuckoo he gave and then the bird flew away

For what good's a cage without any roof.

Chorus: Oh you stupid, you foolish, you madmen of Gotham

What next will you simpletons do?

Oh you stupid, you foolish, you madmen of Gotham

But the last laugh will never be on you.

The rider took his old horse down to the water, of course, to take a drink was all he wanted to do

And when the moon disappeared behind a cloud it was clear that the reflection in the pond would go too

"Oh you've swallowed the moon you stupid four legged loon"

Oh how the idiot sorely did shout

And then he split poor Ned from his behind to his head

On the assumption that the moon would fall out.

Chorus

Off to market one day with two bushels of hay the horse and master set off from the farm

But the horse was too old to carry such a great load and so the farmer tucked them under his arms

"Oh it's too long a road for me to carry this load"

And then the farmer sat and thought with a frown

And then still clutching the sacks he climbed up on the horses back

And rode the poor nag into the ground.

Chorus