Mitch Benn raises the roof at Farmers Weekly Awards

Comedian and song-writer Mitch Benn stole the show at the Farmers Weekly Awards last night (31 October) with a song all about the trials and tribulations of farming in Britain in 2007.

“It went down a storm,” said Farmers Weekly editor, Jane King.

“Everyone just loved it.”

And for those of you who weren’t there, here are the words:

OH WHAT A YEAR

In all things agricultural
The last twelve months were pretty full
Of setbacks and disasters, you’ll agree
Diseases of cows diseases of birds
Diseases of which we’d never heard
Leaking out of test laboratories 

And the weather has been quite insane
Rain to drought to rain again
And there’s more of the same to come I fear
And of course you know the irony
However deep the rain might be
There’s sure to be a hosepipe ban next year

Oh what a year you’ve had
How’d you keep from going mad
You had to struggle hard just to exist
Oh what a year you’ve had
But just tonight let’s not feel bad
Tonight let’s hand out prizes and get pissed

Half the land washed out by floods
And dairy farmers pondering should
We shoot the badgers ‘cos they’ve got TB
Well we could fix this in a thrice

Next time it floods, let’s all grow rice
And milk and eat the badgers, how’d that be?

Oh what a year it’s been
The toughest year we’ve ever seen
But tonight let no-one wear a frown
Oh what a year it was
An annus horribilis georgicus
So tonight we’re gonna drink till we fall down

Words & Music Mitch Benn/ Copyright c 2007 IMWP Music