Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern
A one-joke song about a priest obsessed with clothes. The punchline is that the priest wears swimming trunks for baptisms.
Skellern himself became a priest shortly before his death.
Now who's for a prayer in the chapel?
Are you coming? Oh, do say you will
I'm conducting the prayers in my seersucker shirt
And my jodhpurs of cavalry twill
We'll be holding the sacrament later
When I change into something divine
It's a cloak of deep noir with a lining of rouge
So it won't show the drips from the wine
Then for afternoon deep meditation
I wear green, for it helps me to think
And when I feel thoroughly cleansed in my soul
I like pastels and preferably pink
Sometime I wish I were High Church
Instead of so painfully low
For on feast days and priest days I'd really let rip
In my sequins and ermine and mole
But what would one wear for confession?
Something sombre in deep satin folds?
Or to match all the stories of succulent sin
Ruches of scarlets and purples and gold
I must say I'm pleased to be different
And always stand out in a crowd
For in dull clergy clothes I would not be seen dead
Not without my reversible shroud
But at least in my own congregation
I can dress in the fabrics I want
Velour in the vestry, shantung in the crypt
And my terylene trunks for the font