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Vonhoother Lyr Add: Banks of the Nile, Ewan MacColl's verses (13) Lyr Add: Banks of the Nile, Ewan MacColl's verses 27 Mar 07


I was looking for this here and didn't find it, so I took the hard road and transcribed it off the CD. The spelling follows MacColl's rendition, which (to my ear) shifts from fairly standard British to Scots dialect. He uses a tune almost identical to that of "Banks of the Condamine."
^^^
The Banks of the Nile

Hark hark, the drums do beat, my love, and I must haste away,
The bugles sweetly sound and no longer can I stay,
We are called up to Portsmouth and it's many a weary mile,
All for to be embarked for the banks of the Nile.

O Willie, dearest Willie, don't leave me here to mourn,
Don't leave me here to curse the day that ever I was born,
For parting with me Willie is like parting with me life,
O stay at home, dear Willie, and make me your lawful wife.

I'll put on me velveteens and go along with you,
I'll volunteer me services and go to Egypt too,
I'll fight beneath your banner, love, and fortune it may smile,
And I'll be your loyal comrade on the banks o' the Nile.

O Nancy, dearest Nancy, O that would never do,
The government has ordered no women there tae go,
The government has ordered, the King he doth command,
And I am bound on oath, my love, to serve on a foreign land.

Your waist is rather slender, your complexion is too fine,
Your constitution is too weak to stand a hard campaign,
The sultry suns of Egypt your precious health would spoil,
In the sandy desert places on the banks of the Nile.

O cursed, cursed be the day that ever wars began,
For they've ta'en oot of Scotland mony a bonny man,
They've ta'en frae us oor lifeguards, praetectors o' oor isle,
And their bodies feed the worms on the banks o' the Nile.

(as sung by Ewan MacColl on "Classic Scots Ballads", Tradition, TCD 1051, originally recorded in 1959)


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