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Ballad of an Englishman (Eat Your Heart Out Billy Bragg)

from Far Beyond the Currently Possible Horizon by Simric Yarrow

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about

A rant about growing up in a small island in the North Atlantic... it does have a positive ending, promise! The only full-on SONG on the album...

lyrics

Ballad of an Englishman

I’m going to tell you a story
It is the ballad of an Englishman
He grew to be bitter and angry
At the fate of his ancient land

He grew up in the east of the country
Looking neither to the north or the south
He was ten before he visited London town
And the crowns and the sceptres left him wide in the mouth

You see England was built by invaders
It seems that conquering was in our genes
And the Celtic fringe in all our family lines
Were battered and raped or just lay down and died

Whatever happened to the voice of the druids
Whatever happened to the songs of the bards
The Romans rode straight across those rolling hills
Now most of them are covered in tar

They say that irony stops at the Channel
Perhaps beyond it lay the land of belief
Where a man could look another man in the eye
And show him his heart, not feel a fist in the teeth

Now Britain had its moment of glory
Standing united ’gainst the fascist threat
Back in my grandaddy’s day he dropped bombs in the war
But I didn’t get why we had to fight wars any more

Yes I was this Englishman growing up scared
At the things my ancestors had done
We chopped down the biggest trees upon the earth
For masts for our ships to carry soldiers and guns

Men left the darkness of Victorian England
To spread “morality” to “heathens on heat”
But what nobody talked about in London town
Was the masses of women who were walking the streets

By the time that I reached teenhood
Besides the Falklands all the glory was gone
Britannia’s fury was turned on the miners and women
Who tried to turn us away from the bomb

Most of us were glued to the telly
My team was always the Scots or the French
But when it came to standing tall in the face of it all
My shame and me, we sat on the fence

There was money and wealth in abundance
So we smiled through the pain inside
Till I got on a plane, never looked back again
At a land in which I felt no pride


Here in the true Motherland of humanity
I found division and racial fear
And all over the world where such hatred remains
You will usually find that the British were there

Whatever happened to the vision of Shakespeare
Embracing everybody under the sun
Now the only thing it seems the English care about
Is which minor celebrity’s at number one

I’m in awe of those who have chosen to stay grounded
In the shadow of those dark Satanic mills
Unceasing from your Mental Fight to build Jerusalem
On that island of social and spiritual ills

But now I’ve gratitude for what I received there
For the poets and the rebels and the seers
I have finally found pride in the land of my birth
In those who came before me with their hands in the earth

Because I know my forefathers could dance
And I know my foremothers could sing
I know that they loved as they worked and they prayed
And gave thanks to the land that brought them everything

So I’ll pour out my heart in this song that I sing
With all the power of an Englishman
I’ll paint my face blue and I’ll stand for what’s true
And I’ll march out for peace once again

A peace not enforced by policemen
But born within the depths of our souls
That spreads love and warmth to the whole human race
No matter what creed or what colour of face
With intuitive wisdom a million years old

The warrior spirit of England can rise
To the sound of the fiddle and drum
And help like St George heal the weak by giving them
Strength to shine their light in the sun

I dream of a world without nations
Where all human beings are one
Dancing together like dolphins do
Loving ourselves and letting more love through

So wherever you trace your roots too
Give thanks for the wounds and the gifts and the rage
But choose to be free like I choose to be me
And pray for the dawning of a bright new age

I said I’d tell you a story
It was the ballad of this Englishman
And if you want to see how much my heart has grown
You’ll find me somewhere on this planet that I call my home

credits

from Far Beyond the Currently Possible Horizon, released November 19, 2012
Simric Yarrow - words & music, vocals, trombone; Robert Jeffery - guitar, mixing/production

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Simric Yarrow Cape Town, South Africa

Simric beats out his words with a magician's eye and a musician's ear, performs poetry with a wide-awake humour that thought- and-feel provokes, scintillates, and makes love to the future in a positive joyful celebration of the now... all from beneath Table Mountain in Cape Town, the planet's heart chakra in the heart-shaped country of the rainbow nation, take off to new dimensions in his company! ... more

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