The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #12156   Message #94184
Posted By: Susanne (skw)
11-Jul-99 - 06:23 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Dominion of the Sword (Martin Carthy)
Subject: RE: Martin Carthy's 'Dominion of the Sword' query
I've strained my ears, but four run-throughs wouldn't come up with more than the following. Hoping for more improvements ...

Lay by your pleading, law[?] lies a-bleeding [that's what I hear, too]
Burn all your studies down, and throw away your reading
Small by the word as[??], and can afford us [???]
Not half as much privilege as the sword does

It'll the foster the master, plaster disaster
This'll make a servant quickly greater than the master
Ventures, enters, seeks and it centres
Ever the upper hand, never a dissenter

Kruger, Krugerand-a, wither do you wander? [Kruger-rander? from the coin?]
Gone to the subording of Hastings Banda [suborning?]
Kruger, Krugerand-a, tear you all asunder
????????????????????????????????? [Beirut? to Luanda, Gabarone? to Nyanga - the two names without ? are definite, I think. Nyanga figures in Hamish Henderson's 'Freedom Come All Ye']

Talks of small things, it sets up all things
This'll master money, the money masters all things
It is not season to talk of reason
Never call it loyal when the sword says treason

Calm for the worrier, the whaler, the furrier [warrior]
This'll get the measure of a Rainbow Warrior
Incognito, come and sink a Rainbow
President will never know, where's your bloody cocoa [???] [rush a? Makes no sense either way!]

Subtle deceiver, turns calm to fever
See the pilgrim feign (?) the unbeliever [flay?]
It'll make a layman preach and to pray man
It'll make a Lord of him that was but a drayman

Conquers the crown too, pray for the gown [?] too [that's what I hear, too]
Set you up a province, but it'll pull it down too
No gospel can guide it, no law decide it
In church or state, 'til the sword sanctifies it [sanctified?]

Take books, rent 'em, who can invent 'em?
When that the sword says there'll be no argumentum
Blood that is spilt sir, has gained all the guilt, sir
Thus have you seen me run my sword up to the hilt, sir

These are the sleevenotes, but I'm afraid they don't help me for one very much. Maybe someone else has come across that anthology?

[1988:] A long time ago I came across this song in a Penguin anthology of War Poetry, and the longer I have known it the better it's got. It was written in 1649 by an anonymous pamphleteer and with the removal of verses or lines particular to that time becomes a rejection of the propaganda lie currently being touted for all it's worth (again) that violence or the threat of it will get you nowhere. The tune is adapted from a Breton pipe tune called Ar Ch'akouz (The Leper). (Notes Martin Carthy, 'Right of Passage')