A PLACE CALLED ENGLAND (On Maggie's album "Getting There")


I rode out on a bright May morning like a hero in a song
Looking for a place called England trying to find where I belong
Couldn't find the old flood meadow or the house that I once knew
No trace of the little river or the garden where I grew

I saw town and I saw country motorway and sink estate
Rich man in his rolling acres poor man still outside the gate
Retail park and Burger kingdom prairie field and factory farm
Run by men who think that England's only a place to park their car

But as the train pulled from the station through the wastelands of despair
From the corner of my eye a brightness filled the filthy air
Someone's sown a patch of sunflowers though the soil is sooty black
Marigolds and a few tomatoes right beside the railway track

Down behind the terraced houses in between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners secret gardens full of flowers
Meeta grows her scented roses right beneath the big jets' path
Bid a fortune for her garden Eileen turns away and laughs

Rise up George and wake up Arthur time to rouse out from your sleep
Deck the horse with sea green ribbons drag the old sword from the deep
Hold the line for Dave and Daniel as they tunnel through the clay
While the oak in all its glory soaks up sun for one more day

come all you at home with freedom whatever the land that gave you birth
There's room for you both root and branch as long as you love the English earth
Room for vole and room for orchid room for all to grow and thrive
Just less room for the fat landowner on his arse in his fourwheel drive

For England is not flag or Empire it is not money and it is not blood
It's limestone gorge and granite fell it's Wealden clay and Severn mud
It's blackbird singing from the may tree lark ascending through the scales
It's robin watching from your spade and English earth beneath your nails
        
So here's two cheers for a place called England sore abused but not yet dead
A Mr Harding sort of England hanging in there by a thread
Here's two cheers for the crazy diggers now their hour shall come around
We shall plant the seed they saved as common wealth and common ground