I went down to the river to see if it's still running free,
Over the fence, past the sign, private property,
The water looked clean enough, I suppose,
So I took off my weary working clothes, and I stood at it's edge,
Laughed to myself and dived straight in,
Well up on the bridge, well they stopped and they stared,
My God, what is wrong with him,
There's no harm intended, don't mean to end it all,
Just going in for a swim.

Crawled up on the bank, to borrow all that I can,
to buy my own little piece of our land,
It's craved up into I O Euros
and hung up for sale in the shop windows
By butchers in suits, who mince lies into truth
And still cannot get enough,
While out in the street, my new neighbours I meet,
But I don't even know their names,
And we retire to our cells that we lock up ourselves
with remote controlled wardens

On night release I sang that old river song,
Brother oh Brother I'll tell you whats going on,
Our hard won freedom is being sold,
This so called wealth is just fools gold,
with a stroke of a pen, we're conquered again
and we march off to go shopping,
While the men united get drunk and divided,
paid just to stay blind, the more that you have,
The more you are stared, to ever step out of line,

Went down to the river to see if it's still running free.