It’s my impression that in the U.K. you are assumed to be drinking tea anytime except at breakfast (or are out at a pub drinking beer). So it’s not surprising that Bowie talked about “breakfast and coffee.”
Breakfast is the peak time for tea drinking in the UK I would have thought! Nobody I know would even consider starting the day with coffee unless they were in on holiday and the tea was foul.
Given that the song was written in the 60s and the drink is not specified, tea is a safe assumption. Coffee comsumption in the UK was a lot lower in the 60s.
My day starts with coffee, and there is nothing unusual about that for a brit. Most people I know drink both, but drink more tea than coffee.
Cuppa is always cuppa tea. A smoke on the top deck bus is always tobacco.
I’d love to read more into those lyrics, but that was Paul’s section of the song and I look to John for the cryptic bits.
I spent quite a few years in the 1960s, as I was travelling towards your time. I’m sorry now that I had to leave, as the 60s people were more fun, more willing to break patterns.
In that era, at breakfast in the UK (and in Ireland) “a cup” was definitely a cup of tea. It was unusual to drink coffee at breakfast, although it did occur. The standard hot beverage was tea, and workers had tea breaks, not coffee breaks.
If a Beatle meant a cup of coffee, he would have said so explicitly. On its own, a cup (or a cuppa) at breakfast meant a cuppa tea. Absolutely no question.
And any explicit reference to a smoke or smoking was definitely smoking a cigarette, not waccy baccy. Remember that the majority of adult males smoked in the 1960s. It was a normal part of life, as casually accepted as having breakfast.
I can confirm that there was a burgeoning drugs culture in the 1960s, and there are many implicit references to this in the Beatle repertoire. However, for legal reasons, they were not normally made explicit. Remember that the authorities took a very strict view of these things, and a record company was unlikely to risk prosecution by issuing records which broke the law.
Butter pie. Not mysterious at all, very delicious. One of the things I miss now that I don’t live in the North any more. Though… surely it doesn’t get mentioned in A Day in the Life?
Incidentally, it’s tea in the cup.
Cuppa is most definitely tea. It’s even in the OED defined as “used ellipt. for cup o’ tea. colloq.”
One of the cites given there underlines how distinct the usage is.
:smack:. Also :rolleyes: at myself. Sorry, carry on!
Aha! That explains the “found my way upstairs…” bit. When I was a kid, that line always mystified me.
He gets on a bus, and suddenly he’s finding his way upstairs… at someone else’s house? At work? And why does he have to find his way?
Thank you for the info.