Oops! Try again....From http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.thorp/lyrramb.htmThe Manchester Rambler
Copyright John Tams/Ewan MacColl (Cop Con)
A fine piece of writing by Ewan MacColl with links to the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 (the "Downfall" in the last verse is a waterfall on Kinder Scout). The song was reworked by John Tams in the early 1990's but not recorded until Patter son Jordan Dipper took it up for their album Flat Earth in 2002. The verses remain more or less as MacColl intended, if slightly shuffled; John added the chorus and married the whole thing to a new tune.I've camped out on Crowden, Rambled on Snowdon
Slept by the Wainstones as well.
I've sunbathed on Kinder, been burnt to a cinder
And many's the tale I can tell.
Me rucksack has oft been my pillow
Heather has oft been my bed.
But, sooner than part from these mountains I love,
Well I think I would rather be dead.
There's pleasure in dragging the peat bogs, and bragging,
Of all the the fine walks that you know.
There's even a measure of some kind of pleasure,
In wading through ten feet of snow.
Well I've seen the white hare on the heather,
The curlew fly high overhead.
But, sooner than part from these mountains I love,
Well, I think I would rather be dead.
CHORUS
Nothing changes, It all stays the same,
They're selling the moorland for profit and gain.
They've sold all the rivers, bought all the rain,
And you can't go up there there, you're disturbing the game...
Cod's roe, Caviar, Milk Stout and Champagne,
Gold cards and Dole cards, but, never the twain,
That's the game, That's their game..............
Nothing changes, It all stays the same.
So, I'll go where I will over mountain and hill,
And I'll lie where the bracken lies deep.
I belong to these mountains, these clear crystal fountains,
Where the rocks they stand rugged and steep.
Well, I've stood on the edge of the Downfall,
Seen all the valleys outspread.
No man has the right to own these mountains I love,
Anymore than the wide ocean bed...Repeat CHORUS...