.
All for a uniform -and three square meals a day
We marched off in the Grand Parade..
Across the sea to France and up the line to death
Like we were off on holiday..
But where's your land that's fit for heroes,
And the promises that you forgot?
Blame it on the King, -blame it on Lloyd George,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
At Passchendaele, -through the gas and shell,
We stumbled through the jaws of Hell,
But how will a mother say: «Your father fell…»
In a town that she can't even spell?
And, if these men died for a reason,
Did anybody tell them what?
Call it an act of God, -call it insanity,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
Whatever became of the war to end all wars?
Where did that grand illusion go?
We left it buried in the bloody fields of France
Beyond the lines of Maginot.
Now, from the poppy fields of Flanders,
The ghosts who never heard that final shot
Sing "Jerusalem will be built again!"
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
All for a uniform -and three square meals a day
We marched off in the Grand Parade..
Across the sea to France and up the line to death
Like we were off on holiday..
But where's your land that's fit for heroes,
And the promises that you forgot?
Blame it on the King, -blame it on Lloyd George,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
"Jerusalem – will be built again!"
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
"There is a corner of a foreign field
that is forever England".
All for a uniform -and three square meals a day
We marched off in the Grand Parade..
Across the sea to France and up the line to death
Like we were off on holiday..
But where's your land that's fit for heroes,
And the promises that you forgot?
Blame it on the King, -blame it on Lloyd George,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
At Passchendaele, -through the gas and shell,
We stumbled through the jaws of Hell,
But how will a mother say: «Your father fell…»
In a town that she can't even spell?
And, if these men died for a reason,
Did anybody tell them what?
Call it an act of God, -call it insanity,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
Whatever became of the war to end all wars?
Where did that grand illusion go?
We left it buried in the bloody fields of France
Beyond the lines of Maginot.
Now, from the poppy fields of Flanders,
The ghosts who never heard that final shot
Sing "Jerusalem will be built again!"
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
All for a uniform -and three square meals a day
We marched off in the Grand Parade..
Across the sea to France and up the line to death
Like we were off on holiday..
But where's your land that's fit for heroes,
And the promises that you forgot?
Blame it on the King, -blame it on Lloyd George,
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
"Jerusalem – will be built again!"
But spare a thought for Tommy's Lot..
"There is a corner of a foreign field
that is forever England".
Contributed by giorgio - 2013/5/1 - 16:27
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Lyrics & Music by Dominic Williams
Album: Free Tibet
I'd meant to put this song up during the Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday weekend, but I was delayed by work. Still, I think it's worth putting up now. It's a song about the First World War written by Dominic Williams in the early 1980s. Apparently Dominic Williams was a former teacher at the Liverpool Institute, and a well-known performer on the folk club circuit in the north west of England. I personally learned this after hearing it performed by Liverpool folk singers Alun Parry and Vinny T Spen (organisers of the Woody Guthrie folk club at the Ship and Mitre), who said that they heard Dominic Williams performing it at a coffee shop on Smithdown Road.
The picture above is of the Liverpool "Pals' Battalions" on parade outside St George's Hall before the First World War. It was figured that people would be more likely to volunteer to serve in the War if they could sign up to fight alongside their friends - Liverpool was the first city to test the theory, with Lord Derby mounting a vigorous recruitment campaign for people to join up together with their mates and work colleagues. Within days, Liverpool had enlisted enough men to form four battalions.
Derby addressed the massed troops outside St George's Hall as they waited to depart: "This should be a Battalion of Pals, a battalion in which friends from the same office will fight shoulder to shoulder for the honour of Britain and the credit of Liverpool. I don't attempt to minimise to you the hardships you will suffer, the risks you will run. I don't ask you to uphold Liverpool's honour, it would be an insult to think that you could do anything but that. But I do thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming here tonight and showing what is the spirit of Liverpool, a spirit that ought to spread through every city and every town in the kingdom".
Thousands of these volunteers would die on the battlefields of the Somme and Passchendale.
"An original song that I wrote in the latter part of the last century to commemorate those who died in the WW1. There used to be a band called "Tommy's Lot" who specialised in music from the First World War..
On this performance, I am joined by Des Friel and Chris Waldron..
People have told me it's a folk song. It's nice to think that it might become one.. " (Dominic Williams).