Happy Christmas from the Capital of Culture
Where these days y' barely see a robbed car
Cos we're all too busy drinkin' latte
An' bein' all lahdee dah

Happy Christmas from the Capital of Culture
Where nowadays y' never see a scallie
Cos they're all too busy writin' sonnets
Goin' the opera an ballet.

Happy Christmas from the Capital of Culture
But please - let's just spare a thought
For those places that haven't got no culture -
Like Hoylake! An' Ellesmere Port

Aah! God love them on the Wirral
My heart goes out to them - it does
I think this year, for Christmas
They'd be better off comin' to us

Cos if you want to be at the epicenter
Of everythin' that's goin' on
Y' might as well sell up in Heswall
An' move in with us in Old Swan!

See, with the Capital of Culture title
They've acknowledged what we've always known
That the greatest of civilizations
Wasn't in Greece or in Rome

But here - on the banks of the Mersey
Where even the stupidest fool
Knows Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem -
He was born in Liverpool!

Shakespeare himself was a scouser!
And what about Vincent Van Gough
Born an' brought up in Bootle -
Like his brother Roger 'm' Gough.

Mozart? He came from Fazakerly
The Beethovens - had a pub on Lark Lane
An' that Leonardo De Vinci ?
Don't tell me that's not a Liverpool name!

Marcel Proust worked on the buses -
Garston to Seaforth an' back
Picasso an' Salvidor Dali
Used to prop up the bar at the Cracke

They were all of them, sort of Liverpudlians
Just cause - cause we want them to be;
So Happy Christmas from the Capital of Culture -
And old northern City on the sea.

Willy Russell
© WR Ltd 2005
No reproduction without permission