Lyr Add: Mansion Hoose on the Hill (Eric Bogle)

10 Mar 98 - 01:57 AM (#23411)
Subject: Lyr Add: MANSION HOOSE ON THE HILL (Eric Bogle)
From: Ezio

Mansion Hoose on the Hill
(Eric Bogle)

It's six in the mornin', a cauld wind does blaw
The chimneys and roof-tops are covered wi' snaw
I lie in my bed in the cauld and the dark
And I think o' with's ahead wi' a grim heavy heart
And I wonder if they're sleepin' still
In that big mansion hoose on the hill

But up ott o' bed now and run down the stair
Cursin' and shiverin' in the cauld mornin' air
And though the cauld in the kitchen it near freezes my soul
I can't light the fire for we've no' got coal
And I wonder if they feel the chill
In that big mansion hoose on the hill

Oot the front door now and walk through the toon
Wi' street-lamps still shinin' like stars in the gloom
Walkin' wi' footsteps that wearily drag
Wi' brain cowed and beaten and shoulders the sag
In the fron gate o' the Mill
Past the big mansion hoose on the hill

Fort wo hundred years how my brothers have toiled
While oor master exploited, enslaved and despoiled
The sweat frae oor brows built their great marble ha's
While oor children's sharp hunger pit meat in their craws
One day I will burn doon that Mill
And the big mansion hoose on the hill

Sung by Eric Bogle on 'Bogle live in person' - recorded live in Germany, February 1977, Folkclub Munster - Autogram & Folk Records, Nottuln, Germany - ALLP-211

BACKGROUND. Glossary: Craws=throats; ha's=halls; cauld=cold. I used to work in a tweed mill in the Borders. To get to work on time, which I didn't do all often, I had to get up at six o'clock in the morning to catch a bus to the mill which was a number of miles away. Gettin up a six on a Scottish winter's morning was no joke, but what made matter worse was the fact that the bus used to pass the mansion house of the man who owned the mill every morning on the way to the mill, and needless to say, he was never up at that time in the morning. He came into the mill at about mid-day, did a hard hour's work, then buggered off to the golf course on the squash courts for the rest of the day. Eric Bogle.
Eric wrote this song in July 1971.

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(Thanks to Wolfgang who sent me these lyrics on paper - Ezio).

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