Lyr Req: The Rovin' Dies Hard (Battlefield Band)

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 carry my sword and my shield on my shoulder
I've fought every fight from the Don to the Danube
None braver, none better, none bolder
I've stood with Montrose and against him
I've battled with Swedes and with Danes
And I've carried the standard of many's the army
Through many's the bloody campaign
But now as I sit in the firelight it seems
There's a distant horizon to the sword buckle's gleam
Till a pull at the wine brings an old soldier's dream from afar
For the rovin' dies hard

I'm Calum McLean, I'm a trapper to trade
And it's forty long years since I saw Tobermory
Through Canada's forests I've carried my blade
And its pine trees could tell you my story
Now my wandering days they are over
But I'm thankful to still be alive
For I've many's the kinsman who died in the hulks
At the end of the bold forty-five
I've an Indian lass now, I'll never deceive her
But there's nights when I'd up with my gun and I'd leave her
For the land where the bear and the fox and the beaver are lord
For the rovin' dies hard

My name's Robert Johnston, I'm a man of the cloth
And I'll carry my Bible as long as I'm breathing
I've preached the Lord's Gospel from Shanghai to Glasgow
Where'er He saw fit to make heathens
But now the Kirk's calling me homewards
It's the manse and the elders for me
But the sins of the Session will no' be sofar
From the sins of the South China Seas
And perhaps it's the voice of the Devil I'e heard
For it speaks of the clipper ships flying like birds
Till a man's only comfort is Scripture and the word of the Lord
For the rovin' dies hard

My name's Willie Campbell, I'm a ship's engineer
And I know every berth between Lisbon and Largo
I've sweated more diesel in thirty-five years
Than a big tanker takes for a cargo
Of the good times I've always had plenty
When the whisky and the women were wild
And there's many's the wean wi' the red lock o' the Campbells
Who's ne'er seen the coast of Argyll
But now as the freighters unload on the quay
The sound of the engines is calling to me
And it sings me a song of the sun and the sea and the stars
For the rovin' dies hard

I've tuned up my fiddle, and I've rosined my bow
And I've sung of the clans and the clear crystal fountains
I can tell you the road and the miles frae Dundee
To the back of Alaska's wild mountains
And when my travelling days they are over
And the next of the rovers has come
He'll take all my songs and he'll sing them again
To the beat of a different drum
And if ever I'm asked why the Scots ae beguiled
I'll lift up my glass in a health, and I'll smile
And I'll tell them that fortune's dealt Scotland the wildest of cards
For the rovin' dies hard

Cheers!
Ian

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.