Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems

The Lambeth Children O
Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1966 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1994. This song is based on a 1966 news report from the town of Lambeth, Ontario, Canada, concerning how "About fifty children, hanging from branches, forced the woodmen to spare the trees yesterday in this village just south of London" (The Muse of Parker Street, p. 95).

((Version One)):
Fifty children sitting in the trees,
Fifty children swingin in the breeze,
Up in the branches and off their knees,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O.
Eleven fine maples growing in a row,
The road to be widened doomed them to go,
But fifty kids of Lambeth cried "No, no!"
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O.
Roads we've enough and roads everywhere,
Roads for the cars we can very well spare,
But long live the maple trees, green or bare,
And hooray for the Lambeth children, O,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O.
Woodsmen came with their axes and their saws,
But kids on the branches, chirruping like daws,
And the woodsmen said, "The devil with the laws,
And hooray for the Lambeth children, O,
And hooray for the Lambeth children, O."
Lambeth town in Ontario,
That's where the maple trees stand in a row,
That's where the loveliest children grow,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O,
Hooray for the Lambeth children, O.