The Bunny Run

Lyrics

1 and Chorus
Well it’s Friday night and me shift is done,
I’m off into Barnsley for to have some fun,
I’ve got meself together and I feel ten ton,
So let’s get cracking on the bunny run.

2
I’ll ask our lass if I can borrow twenty pounds,
I’ll meet up with me mates and we’ll go round town,
We’ll drink and scrap and have a laugh,
I’m that excited nearly had a bath.

3
Drinking wi’ our lass is quite alright,
But it’s no bloody good on a Friday night,
So she goes wi’ her mates and I go wi’ mine,
That way we all have a real good time.

4
My idea of perfect heaven,
Is to start off wi’ a couple in the Number Seven,
A few in t’ Shakey and the Corner Pin,
Another in t’ Chennels if they’ll let us in!

5
Well I love to strut down Wellington Street,
Give some chat to the lasses that we meet,
They wear next to nothing and sometimes less,
Very much to me liking I must confess.

6
At half past eleven we get thrown out the pub,
It’s a big decision, a curry or a club,
Or maybe just get the last bus home,
No takers for that one, I should have known!

7
It’s three in the morning, there’s an aching in me head,
A churning in me belly as I lie here in me bed!
But it’s no good regretting the things I’ve done,
I’ll be out next week on the bunny run!

This is a contemporary song about Yorkshire.

Provenance

Barnsley was well known for the making of garments in its sewing factories such as McLintocks, the Shirt Factory, Raven’s and latterly S.R.Gents, over the past hundred years.

Working class lasses left school at the age of fifteen, sometimes earlier, and often completed their full working lives in one factory. The camaraderie fostered in the working environment and friendships would naturally lead them to Friday night group socialising, married or not!

Many of the lads similarly worked as miners, labourers or in earlier times in glass manufactured products in firms such as Redfearn Brothers, Beatson Clarks, and Wood Brothers.

The “Bunny Run” is an old term which continues to this day and means now simply moving from one (full) pub to another in the town centre swapping ribald comments with other groups of revellers, a weekly occurrence!

This song was written by and is performed by Dave Bottomley, a resident singer and musician at Barnsley Folk Club.