Country Life / Country Life by Steve Knightley / Trad

I like to rise when the sun she rises

Early in the morning

I like to hear the small birds singing

Merrily upon the leylam

And hurrah for the life of a country boy

And to ramble in the new mown hay………..

 

 

Working in the rain cutting up wood

Didn’t do my little brother much good

Lost two fingers in a chainsaw bite

All he does now is drink and fight

Sells a little grass and hots up cars

Talks of travelling never gets far

Loves his kids but left his wife

An everyday story of country life

 

The red brick cottage where I was born

Is an empty shell of a holiday home

Most of the year there’s no one there

The village is dead and they don’t care

Now we live on the edge of town

Haven’t been back since the pub closed down

One man’s family pays the price

For another man’s vision of country life

 

My old man is eighty four

His generation won the war

Lost his job forever when

They only kept on one in ten

Landed gentry country snobs

Where were you when they lost their jobs

No one marched or subsidised

To save a way of country life

 

Silent fields distant flames

Drifting smoke down empty lanes

Picture postcard hills on fire

Cattle burn on funeral pyres

Out to graze they look so sweet

We hate the blood but love the meat

Swallow hard and close your eyes

Taste a piece of country life

 

And hurrah for the life of a country boy

And to ramble in the new mown hay

 

This is I feel a truly great song by Steve Knightley of the duo 'Show of Hands'.

I don't know if he intended it to draw its title from the magazine of the same name or from the rather more idyllic traditional song from which I quote a verse.

I think the contrast is appropriate anyway.