Probably the grimmest of MacColl's songs on the Travellers
Jiim Carroll

L8 THE WlNDS OF CHANGE
(1963, The Travelling People)

While collecting information for the above Radio-Ballad, producer Charles Parker interviewed Alderman Harry Watton, J.P., of Birmingham:

Watton: How far does it come in your mind before you say: 'I have done everything I possibly can ... and I                 will help the broad mass of these people, but there are some I can do nothing with whatsoever.'                 Then doesn't the time arise in one's mind when one has to say: 'All right, one has to exterminate                 the impossibles ...'

Parker:        Exterminate - that's a terrible word. Surely you don't ... mean that ...?

Watton:        Why not?   


alternative title: 'Dark the Night'
tune: traditional U.S.A. ('Henry Lee')
new words and trad arr: Ewan MacColl
© 1968 Stormking Music, Inc.
disc 47


                        

Dark the night, the winds of change
So sharp and keen do blow -
The cock it crows with iron throat,
It says that we must go,
It says that we must go.

The hunters follow hard behind,
The hounds they make their din -
The woods are gone that sheltered us,
And none will let us in,
And none will let us in.

The hard-eyed men who guard the road,
They bid us choose our way -
And yet they will not let us go
Nor will they let us stay,
Nor will they let us stay.

Five-hundred years of timeless days,
We wandered through the land -
But now the guardians of the clocks
Have said our race is damned,
They say our race is damned.