The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #27423   Message #336273
Posted By: Max Tone
07-Nov-00 - 07:06 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Cold Days of February (Robin Williamson)
Subject: Lyr Add: COLD DAYS OF FEBRUARY (Robin Williamson)
Here's a brilliant anti-war/bigotry song from The Incredible String Band, c.1973. I've subsequently seen Robin singing it solo, accompanying himself on harp, but I can't quite work out the chords. It's based on Em/Bm, I think!!
Help!

COLD DAYS OF FEBRUARY
(By Robin Williamson)
As recorded by Robin Williamson on "The Seed-at-Zero" (2000)

As I beside the winter's fire,
Sat writing words strange and steady.
Amongst my own internal choir
Came voices to my mind unready
Of those who died on either side,
In Belfast or the streets of Derry,
Go sighing through the northeast wind,
These cold days of February.

Some clerk with papers and his pen,
Some banker with his poison pity,
Some captain careless of his men,
These fan the flames that maim the city;
And bigots in the name of Christ
By thorny paths obscure and muddy,
May fear to roam through years of cold,
Bewailing how their hands are bloody.

Whether they were from here or there,
Their race or their place I would not be heeding.
The men who caused such bitterness,
If hearts they have, let their hearts be bleeding,
Who neither for age nor the young child
Would turn the shot of the arms they carried.
Go bear the guilt a weary way
For the cold days of February.

Rob