Lyrics
Down and Deeper
Drawing us down and deeper and drowning
Drawing us down and deeper and finally
Rising and still hard working
Cutting ground where once we played
Playing and dancing, skating and singing,
Drawing us down below, the wash calls
Cutting and digging, farming, the cycle
Of the years has changed.
Our wealth has always dwelt below us
I’ve heard tell
Hail to the land that raises
those with whom we dwell
Always lived and shared with
Those we’d welcome last
I’ve heard stories of odd things
Dwelling in the marsh
Chorus
Cries in the night, they wake us
Shrieking their sound
Boggarts, bogles child, they own this
Old, sodden land
Don’t go out, after nightfall
Don’t follow lights
These are the fen men
Lamenting their might
Don’t go down below, its dark there
Misty and cold
Still foreign people gather seeking what they can
Banking, fishing, sifting, digging
the rich land keeps you
the fens draw you in
Chorus
When the wars range and muskets
rattle their cry
The people do rise to fight for
Their common land
Shared by the hated, the feared, misunderstood
Against you drainers
Doing no good
Industrial surgeons
Cutting more wounds
Holland cries dry tears
As gangs dig down
Men from the west come seeking
Wages to buy food
The land does rise
The land does fall
Chorus
Coming from afar
We follow those before
Bound to cross the land
To man your fields and factories
Missing homes, and wives, and children
Told to go home
The land needs these hands
To feed you on your thrones
Chorus
Poverty Knock
Up at every morning at 5
It’s a wonder that we’re still alive
Standing and yawning, in the cold morning
It’s back to the dreary old drive.
We’re never going to be late
The bus is from door and to gate
It pays to be quiet, just head down and take it
Commerce employs by the crate
Poverty poverty knock
The engines are saying all day-o
Poverty poverty knock
The masters too skinny to pay us
Poverty poverty knock
With always one eye on the clock
My thoughts can collect, with the day’s final check, no more
Poverty poverty knock
Oh dear my poor head it rings
To loud to talk, joke or to sing
The clamour of voices, the clanking of noises
Oh lord how I wish I had wings
David he’s on shift again
He’s tired but he’s chatting to Ken
Suspicious looks and obvious head jerks
Aimed towards Piotr and Len
Chorus
Sometimes a motor it breaks
Health & Safety close down the place
All officers fawning, sincerity scorning
We know it’s all show, saving face.
When the employers above
Come round with a clap and a laugh
With enrichment sessions and free English lessons
Division’s enforced with a glove
Chorus
I spose we should all count our luck,
Clean floors when before they were muck
Though it is tedious we know it’s convenient
That’s the bargain that we all have struck
Vesta’s been courting our Steve
She’s so big, you wouldn’t believe
(but) She’s a gang worker, and they’re not together
More kids who think fathers all leave
Chorus x2
S.K.Y.
You should see the skies round here
Towering over all
And while the mist may fall
The air is clear
From my little house
That guards a view so long
I see the difference in all
And that we all belong
The world is covered up
A simple concrete ball
Suspended in the sky
Where people feel like
They yearn to see that sky
A simple stretching blue
Working down the wash
It’s here for me and you
Chorus
More faces I don’t know
Less tongues I understand
Less communal work
Less living off the land
But what would my old man say
He’d take me by the arm
They’re working just like us
They’re not doing any harm
Old ways not going strong
Farms favour machine parts
No lines of working men
It’s farming without hearts
The land’s not on the mend
The people coming in
Continuing our might
South Hollanders all
Chorus
I think back to that time
Endless spendless days
Playing in the wash
That was my everyday
The deep dug dykes
To hold back the tide
Afforded us the play
Lit by streetlights
Like the temper of man
The waters rise and fall
I see more people coming in
Different languages to call
They’re doing jobs our fathers did
Taking care of the land
While we disconnect ourselves
On tarmac we stand
Chorus
Pigeon End
Pigeon end where I was born
That little house where I was born
Past the pub, where the beggars call
Old Ron, and Charlie Dorn
Playing with me on the back room floor
I was in that pub, since I could crawl
It was the centre of the universe, and
We didn’t know it was Fulney at all
Water lapping at the edge of the door
I thought floods like these didn’t happen anymore
That damp old school with the fire never on
I got my warmth from the beer bottle cup
The bobbys always came on a double beat
We paid them scorn as they walked the streets
but we didn’t care we had the world at our feet
Pigeon End held all we could ever need.
The water calls in the shape of the shilling
Charlie and me off to war and off to killing
Navy boats gliding on salt water
They’re so different from our Spalding skimmers
Charlie’s gone with a bullet in the brain
Home on leave back to Spalding again
Kiss your daddy goodnight darling
Lipstain smudge on the photo frame
So I chose life and came home to mend
but its hard when you leave and return again
The fens are there but the pub’s closed down
It’s all moved into folklore now.
Pigeon end where I was born
Past the pub where the beggars call
I see boys with Ron’s nose and Charlie’s call
They’ll never know it was Pigeon end at all
Ready Hands
Community is shattered here no ones out about
The rich folk from the south that come
Its them that need the shout
And every house they buy with southern gold
Is one less here for us
The young are off for jobs and (of) course
It’s us misunderstood
Some fly the nest and some chose to come
And here they land a lot
From town and port at sky at night
It’s here they’ll gain a plot
How and why they do here just isn’t my concern
I want them gone before closing time
Whichever way they turn
And if no-one knows my name no more
Then what really is the point
Of living here at all anymore
Putting noses out of joint
There’s no sticks left for me to up
No leaves left to turn
No point in living in homeland (if)
I’m the last one left to burn
But there’s nothing new about newcomers
They’re just the latest ready hands
In this fertile land of picking food
And sending to other lands
From the mythical to the magical
To the straight and to the known
We all landed here at some point and
Made it feel like home
So it’s community not an ism
We think that we deserve
A right to feel at home without
Touching other nerves
Don’t aim displeasure at your fellow friend
But at the source of harm
But it’s getting them, and knowing them
And finding the right arms
Seas End
A long way from home
But these familiar four walls
I live in the house, that I was born
But do I belong?
We’d play games on a Friday
A real village thing
Keep the Grays away on a Saturday
An early morning trim
Go the pub with mum and dad
But wouldn’t get in
I was too young to hold a big old pint glass
Far too soon to begin
Only two reasons for town
For doctors or wedding gown
My wardrobe that came, was a portal to life
My first gift to me
Where the seas used to end
This place a relic of the past
Robbed of its identity, by grand old plans
No thought for community
So if I stay will you allow me?
I just want words spoken in this town
And spoken freely, whatever the tongue
It’s all our home now
A long way from home
But still close to the sea
There’s no great need for me to go back again
To see the changes in me
I just need someone to know me
For me to settle in
A quick hello, a word of advice
A small pot of tea
More houses being built
Less laughter in the streets.
Eyes pour scorn, on the new folk like me
Time earns courtesy
So if I stay will you allow me?
I just want words spoken in this town
And spoken freely, whatever the tongue
It’s all our home now
The Boggart and the Farmer
There was a young farmer, in South Holland did dwell
Who spied some drained land to grow crop for to sell
So gather round people his story I’ll tell
How the new met the old and the new it prevailed
This ambitious young farmer enclosed the new land
With thought to gain wealth and to take a fair hand
When from out of a drain, a creature did jump
Who snarled and who spat, and did fury command
A squat little man, body bound in grey hair
With eyes full of rage, and a menacing stare
His arms long as bean poles, hung down by his sides
His sinews as strong as a six-year old mare
The farmer, though scared, was a keen businessman
Who thought with some cunning he might gain the top hand
He welcomed the boggart, with a calm and an ease
‘Lets share in the bounty that comes from this land.
As a creature of muck, used to water all round
You’ve right to claim half of whatever is found’
The boggart he looked the farmer up and all down
I’ll return in a year and claim what grows above ground
A year then did pass while the farmer worked hard
Sowing seeds of potatoes in the rich peaty yard
He laughed as he planned to fool his hairy landlord
And thought himself clever to have played the right cards
The boggart returned and on seeing the pitch
Was left with nout but the haulms and the twitch
He said you young rascal have respect for the old
Next year I will claim what’s beneath the earth’s soil
A year it passed by and then at the backend
The boggart returned, his pride for to mend
And on seeing the field of freshly cut wheat
He turned on the farmer and a new deal he penned
‘You’re not rid of me yet, I’ll have what I’m owed
I’ve lived in this land, and looked after what’s flowed
Another year will pass and we’ll see who does laugh
We’ll keep for ourselves what our own hand has mowed’
The farmer, he thought himself finally undone
His wits can’t be beaten by this Tiddy Mun
He sought out the wise man and asked for his aid
Thus a curse it was laid on the old by the young.
At the end of the year, our boggart returned
Both started to mow and the earth for to churn
While the farmer kept on, the boggart he tired
Fell into a sleep and no crop did he earn
Raging and screaming, he returned down the dyke
The only remains of his waterlogged life
The farmer kept all and so its been since
And all signs of folklore has gone when once rife
Field and Dyke
Farewell my native land
Farewell my country
I can no longer stay, but
Know that I love thee
The lowland fields that lure water’s might
How will I leave thee?
My father’s dead and the money’s tight, but
Know that I love thee
The fox, the hare, the eel, the pike
South Holland bred in Field & Dyke
On fenland soil I trod my way
On fenland soil I lived my days
I will miss my lowland farm
Though the roofs let the rain in
And the winds that whistled through the barn
Now I must leave thee
The broken machines that I played upon
With friends, feeling so free
They’re gone away and I’ll do the same, and
Now I must leave thee
Chorus
A man gave me work and I thought him kind
Paid me more than I hoped for
But wages became a deathly bind
Fields, how I miss thee
10 to a room and I can’t get out
The bus (comes) at five every morning
Taking us to the dreary old drive
Fields, how I miss thee
Chorus
Working to build the bonuses
For the people above me
Living our lives in this noisy hell
Now I want to break free
I remember my family’s farm
Why did I leave thee?
The wealth I had was beyond compare
Now I want to break free
Chorus
Where water meets the lowland fields
is our home across the sea
you say ‘ it’s just like Poland here’
but I disagree
We made the journey and came to your land
To work in your fields and factories
but you spit at our feet and tell us to leave
how can we ever be free?
Chorus x2
Water Makes This Land
Water comes from three ways now
Land and air and sea somehow
No tide that pushes water in
But rivers flow from where they begin
Water made this land somehow
Water makes this land still now
The rain it drops down upon the fen
Allows the land to grow and to mend
With every cloud that swells above
The land begins with health and good
Water made this land somehow
Water makes this land still now
And we dig so far down
And we cut our trees down
And we drain and we grow
And we plough and we sow
And we’ve spoilt the soil that isn’t our own And we’ve
lost everything now
Try to cut the sea away
And try to pump a stream all day
The drops will run from off the land
You’ve made your homes and grown your dams
Water made this land somehow
Water makes this land still now
There’s peat and silt in this ready land
More to see and more to raise with hands
Forces take the food away
With mouths to feed and hands to pay
Water made this land somehow
Water makes this land still now
And we raise the soil
From water’s cold grasp
And we feed the country
By truck and by bus
And I see all the happy smiles in town
And we’ve gained something new now
The height of a man in the life of a man
Sea is rising faster than the ground
Down at home the ground is sinking south
Shrink the height of a man
In the lifetime of a man
Water made this land somehow
Water makes this land still now
And land is still shrinking
And so is our thinking
We must band together
Overlooking our difference
Extend a hand and welcome in land
Cos we’ve gained something new now