Subject: The Rovin' Dies Hard : Battlefield Band From: Tony in Sweden Date: 30 Apr 01 - 08:53 AM Can anyone help with the lyrics to "The Rovin' dies Hard" also if anyone can help, as I'm most sure they can, with lyrics to "The Dear Green Place". Any help would be greatfully appreciated. mvh Tony. |
Subject: Lyr Add: THE ROVIN' DIES HARD (Brian McNeill) From: IanC Date: 30 Apr 01 - 09:59 AM Here it is. The Rovin' Dies Hard (Brian McNeill)
My name's John Mackenzie, I'm a master-at-arms
I'm Calum McLean, I'm a trapper to trade
My name's Robert Johnston, I'm a man of the cloth
My name's Willie Campbell, I'm a ship's engineer
I've tuned up my fiddle, and I've rosined my bow
Cheers! |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard ; Battlefield B From: Tony in Sweden Date: 30 Apr 01 - 10:30 AM Ian, Thanks a million! I owe you a dram for this! mvh Tony. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard ; Battlefield B From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 30 Apr 01 - 02:52 PM See also these two previous discussions: For The Roving Dies Hard Need two Brian MacNeil songs |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard ; Battlefield B From: Susanne (skw) Date: 30 Apr 01 - 05:53 PM This must be the fourth time those words have been posted to the Forum! 'The Dear Green Place', on the other hand, barely gets a mention. If you can wait, and nobody beats me to it, I'll copy it out of my Battlefield Band songbook for you on Labour Day. |
Subject: Lyr Add: THE DEAR GREEN PLACE (Alan Reid) From: Susanne (skw) Date: 01 Nov 01 - 07:05 PM Promises! Still, better late ... Hope Tony is still around! THE DEAR GREEN PLACE (Alan Reid) Chorus: There was a town that once was green And a river flowed to the sea The river flows forever on But the dear green place is gone It was by the clear Molendinar burn Where it meets and it runs with the river Clyde And they tell the tale of the holy one Who was fishing down by the riverside A holy man, from Fife he came His name they say was Kentigern And by the spot where the fish was caught The dear green place was born Now the salmon ran through the river stream And they salted them by the banks o' Clyde And the faces glowed as the river flowed And the place arose by the riverside There was cloth to dye and hose to buy The traders came from all around And they raised a glass to the dear green place The place that was a town When the furnaces came to fire the iron And folk were thrown from the farmland Then the Irishman and the Highland man And the hungry man came with willing hands They wanted work, a place to live Their empty bellies needed filled And the farmyard was another world From the dirty overcrowded mill Now you may have heard of the foreign trade And fortunes made by tobacco lords But the working man slaved his life away And an early grave was his sole reward A dreary room, a crowded slum Disease and hunger everywhere And the price to pay was another day To fight the anger and despair A thousand years have been here and gone Since Kentigern saw the banks o' Clyde How many dreams and how many tears In a thousand years of a city's life A city hard, a city proud And 'No Mean City' it has been Perhaps tomorrow it yet may be The dear green place again [1987:] Deals with the development of Glasgow. First a quiet fishing village on the Clyde, later one of the industrial hubs of Britain's Victorian empire, the city has spent much of this century in a spiral of economic decline which has only recently shown signs of halting. The title derives from one of the theories of the city's naming - that the word 'Glasgow' is a translation from Gaelic. The song also refers to the legend of the city's founding. The story goes that Mungo (St Kentigern) found a ring in the belly of a salmon he had caught. The ring turned out to belong to the Queen of Strathclyde, who in thanks persuaded her (pagan) husband to allow the building of a Christian church, thus founding the Diocese of Glasgow. Legend is a good starting point for a story told in terms of the common pepole who made the city's wealth; the dispossessed highlanders, the famine-stricken Irish immigrants and the country folk who swarmed into the city in search of a means of living. The Battlefield Band was founded in Glasgow, and we'd all like to echo the hope expressed at the song's end; that the city might become 'the dear green place again'. (Notes Battlefield Band, 'Celtic Hotel') [1990:] First published in 1935, and reissued no less than 27 times with more than half a million copies in print, 'No Mean City' was the result of collaboration between an unemployed baker from the Gorbals, Alexander McArthur, and an English journalist, H. Kingsley Long. The former had written his memoirs which the latter then tried to put into shape. It is hardly surprising that this 'ghosting' resulted in a badly-plotted and ill-written book. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Johnnie Stark, a young man from the Gorbals who becomes a gang-leader and 'razor king' - what would now be called a street fighter. The novel is notorious for its graphic descriptions of squalor and violence in the Glasgow of the 1920s. It not only inspired a series of poor imitations, but also sells well to this day. In spite of the fact that there are over 300 novels dealing with Glasgow, it - or its title [...] - is the Glasgow novel inevitably quoted by outsiders. It is small wonder that Glasgow became Britain's ghetto, and that people from Ealing to Edinburgh believed that it was populated by dangerous animals. (Damer, Glasgow 5f) [1994:][The] gangs were identifiable armies and though they lived among us they never truly lived with us. There was a subtle code that we picked up, like never establishing eye contact and never, ever talking to them. I wasn't aware of being told this, it was part of a collective sixth sense that we absorbed and was as natural and essential to Blackhill children as breathing. As a result we never felt that we would be harmed and neither were we. [...] The hard men of the gangs made their livings outside their home areas and not by robbing or cheating their own neighbours, so they kept on the right side of them. No-one in Blackhill would have grassed on any of the gangs, and not entirely through self-interest, but also because they took care to give us little to complain about. Besides, the police were our common enemy, so there was no one to grass to. (Meg Henderson, Finding Peggy 49f) |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard ; Battlefield B From: GUEST,Boab Date: 02 Nov 01 - 01:51 AM Name a city with a greater area of parkland per head of population than Glasgow; you can't, can you? My American partner --well travelled---says quite unequivocally that only two European cities come higher than Glasgow in her estimation; one is Florence , the other Venice. While it didn't gain the title "European City of Culture" for nought, I still detest it---because it IS a city! Didn't know Alan Reid of Battlefild wrote "the Dear Green Place". Ta for the info... |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard ; Battlefield B From: Susanne (skw) Date: 12 Nov 01 - 06:37 PM It is Swansea that claims to have the most extensive parks in the UK, and it certainly is a beautiful city (in places ...). Don't know how they work it out, though - by percentage of ground covered or by 'per head of population'. Still, there doesn't seem to be a single song on a Swansea park whereas I seem to remember at least three on Glasgow parks. |
Share Thread: |
Subject: | Help |
From: | |
Preview Automatic Linebreaks Make a link ("blue clicky") |