THE GLORIOUS TWENTIES

THE GLORIOUS TWENTIES

The nineteen-twenties was a time of fun,
parties, dancing, gambling, gangsters and the gun,
Jazz, boot-legging, sequins, feathers and The Crash
Bobs, liberation, strikes, starvation-a hash!
People getting rich, people getting poor,
Living is a party, living is a chore;
The "Model T" was symbolic of wealth,
While slums slaughtered poor people's health;
People laughing at a silent movie,
People begging for a cup of tea,
Miners underpaid, judges overpaid,
Factory tyrants making the workers afraid;
Noel Coward plays depicted a life of bliss;
Bright Young Things were granted many a wish,
Wodehouse and Priestly were the world above stairs,
Pubs and music hall were the servants cares.
Fear of Communism in the USA,
Bans on immigration swelling everyday,
Men in white robes holding the burning cross,
Lynching, looting, mocking the negro's loss,
Popism scorned, Judaism attacked,
Al Jolson and others their faces blacked;
Vaudeville and Gershwin people adored,
Filling theatres and never being bored,
Valentino and Swanson, the gods of the day,
Had so many pennies which they threw away,
Flappers giggling, wiggling and puffing away,
In a world where justice reigned everyday:
Al Capone, Versailles, Weimar and Mosley;
Hatred and greed was a blinding sea,
The wave of Nazism was lapping to the shore,
People were becoming greedier for more,
Discontent was rising as Want was thriving,
Some were squandering, others surviving,
Suicide was rife when The Market crashed,
And the glorious twenties lifestyle was dashed!