When I was younger I had a job at a big record company – in the warehouse, packing old shit compilation records off to mail order clubs.
We had a tea lady whose name I can’t remember I but I have a feeling it was “Rose”.
Rose grew up in east London and was packed off to somewhere in the country during the war, she had a wonky eye, a wonky leg and a delightful disposition.
You always knew Rose and her trolley were on the way for two reasons; the trolley rattled, and Rose had a habit of singing, always just one line of one song.
“Life is like a bowl of cherries…” she’d rasp at regular intervals in her charming cheery cockney way.
One day, I asked Rose why she always sang that one line of one song.
“It’s all I know,” she replied, as I tried to hold the gaze of her good and wonky eye at the same time.
“Me mum used to sing it and I picked it up from her.”
“And you never asked her about the rest of the song?”
“No, why should I?”
“But didn’t you wonder?”
“That’s the trouble with you, you have to know everything.”
Every now and then Rose would get a bit lost, or she’d forget where she’d left something.
Whenever this happened she’d wring her hands and softly say to herself, “Oh, what a pickle I’m in.”
That could very well be an alternate title for this song.