(a) Extra verse 2.

(b) Check some of the place names - the DT version was probably put in by a musician with no feeling for words.

(c) Title: "I'm a Rambler (the Manchester Hiker's Song).

(d) If I remember correctly, some bits of it were used in "The Ballad of John Axon."

(e) From "Ewan MacColl Peggy Seeger Songbook" Oak Publication, New York, N.Y. 1963. Copyright Stormking Music, Inc 1963.

I've been over Snowdon, I've slept up on Crowden,
I've camped by the Wain Stones as well.
I've sunbathed on Kinder, been burned to a cinder,
And many more things I can tell.
My rucksack has oft been my pillow,
The heather has oft been my bed,
And sooner than part from the mountains,
I think I would rather be dead.

CHORUS:
I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler, from Manchester way,
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way.
I may be a wage slave on Monday,
But I am a free man on Sunday.

There's pleasure in dragging through peat bogs and bragging
Of all the fine walks that you know;
There's even a measure of some kind of pleasure
In wading through ten feet of snow.
I've stood on the edge of the Downfall,
And seen all the valleys outspread,
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

The day was just ending as I was descending
Down Grindsbrook, just by Upper Tor,
When a voice said "Hey, you!" in the way keepers do
He'd the worst face that I ever saw.
The tone of his voice was unfriendly,
In the teeth of his fury I said
"Jack, sooner than part from these mountains
I think I would rather be dead."

He called me a louse, he said "Think of the grouse!"
Well, I thought, but I just couldn't see
Why old Kinder Scout and the moors round about
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me.
He said "All this land is my master's"
But at that I stood shaking my head
For no man has a right to the mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed.

I once courted a maid, a spot welder by trade,
She was fair as the rowan in bloom
And the blue of her eye matched the blue moorland sky
And I loved her from April till June.
On the day that we should have been married,
I went for a ramble instead,
For sooner than part from my mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

So I go where I will, over valley and hill,
And I lie where the bracken is deep.
I belong to the mountains, to the pure crystal fountains,
Where the rocks they are rugged and steep.
I have seen the white hare in the heather
And the curlew fly high overhead
And sooner than part from the mountains,
I think I would rather be dead.

HTML line breaks added --JoeClone, 4-Jan-02.