Lyr Add: Navigator (Phil Gaston)

Subject: Lyr Add: NAVIGATOR (Phil Gaston)
From: SDShad
Date: 07 Apr 00 - 11:40 AM

Yet another of those deceptively traditional-sounding (in words and melody, if not in style) Pogues songs that was mentioned on another thread recently:

NAVIGATOR
(P. Gaston)

The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts,
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights.

Chorus:
Navigator, Navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

They died in their hundreds with no sign to mark where
Save the brass in the pocket of the entrepreneur.
By landslide and rockblast they got buried so deep
That in death if not life they'll have peace while they sleep.

[Chorus]

Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid
The way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made
The supply of an Empire where the sun never set
Which is now deep in darkness, but the railway's there yet.

[Chorus]

^^ @irish @work @railroad

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Navigator - who is P Gaston?
From: Hamish
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 05:28 AM

Don't know the Pogues' version (somehow they hardly twitched my radar) but Kris Drever does a stunning version.

Who is "P Gaston"?

--
Hamish

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Navigator
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Jul 09 - 08:46 AM

Phil Gaston is an Irish songwriter. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, moved to London in the 1970s and later moved back to Ireland. ...
(Pasted from Wikipedia: can't get into the article as it's in some weird format that Windows doesn't recognise!)
I believe he was one of the Pogues, and wrote songs for them.
I only heard "Navigator" when Kris D did it, great version: have since heard the Pogues too!