The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18342   Message #181571
Posted By: GUEST,Bob Bolton('s home computer)
20-Feb-00 - 06:44 AM
Thread Name: BS: Translate English to American?
Subject: Lyr Add: CHAMPION AT KEEPING THEM ROLLING
G'day Terry K and Shambles,

The song, by Ewan MacColl doesn't seem to be in the DT (possibly for copyright reasons). There is a parody I'm Champion at Driving Them Crazy, about an Irish piper and set to the same tume The Limerick Rake.

The original is a short song, used in a radio documentary that preceded the Radio Ballads Lorry Harbour, 1949. There are only three stanzas by Ewan MacColl - although the truck drivers have picked it up - and many less presentable verses may still live in the tradition. This is the original version.

Champion at Keeping Them Rolling
I am an old timer, I travel the road,
I sit on me wagon and lumber me load,
My hotel is the jungle, a caf's me abode
And I'm well known to Blondy and Mary.
My liquor is diesel oil laced with strong tea,
And the old highway code was my first A.B.C.,
And I cut my eye-teeth on an old A.E.C,
And I'm champion at keeping 'em rolling

I've sat in my cabin and broiled in the sun,
Been snowed up on Shap on the Manchester run;
I've crawled through the fog with me twenty-two tons
Of fish that was stinking like blazes.
From London to Glasgow to the Newcastle quay, From Liverpool, Preston and Bristol City,
The polones on the road give the phumb-sign to me,
I'm champion at keeping 'em rolling.

You may sing of your soldiers and sailors so bold,
But there's many and many a hero untold,
Who sits at the wheel in the heat and the cold
Day after day without sleeping.
So watch out for cops and slow down at the bends,
Check all you gauges and watch your big-ends,
And zig with your lights when you pass and old friend,
You'll be champion at keeping 'em rolling.

Copyright Ewan MacColl