I've never been out of Salford town
The place where I was born
Except when I was in the ranks
And wore a uniform
But I'd sooner never travel
If the only way to see
The world is through the battlesights
Of a Mark IV-303.
I have a little baby
He's the apple of me eye
When I think about his future
My thoughts take wing and fly
What kind of future can there be
With planes and tanks and guns
With flying high and dropping bombs
On other people's sons?
I'd like to see the whole wide world
North, south, east, and west
I'd like to travel everywhere
With the girl that I love best
But I'll stay beside the Irwell
All me life before I'll stand
In some foreign country
With a bayonet in me hand.
I work each day upon the docks
And see the ships come in
And no one asks to see the colour
Of a sailor's skin
Side by side they're working men
From Norway, China, Greece
Why can't the statesmen do the same
And let us live in peace?
The place where I was born
Except when I was in the ranks
And wore a uniform
But I'd sooner never travel
If the only way to see
The world is through the battlesights
Of a Mark IV-303.
I have a little baby
He's the apple of me eye
When I think about his future
My thoughts take wing and fly
What kind of future can there be
With planes and tanks and guns
With flying high and dropping bombs
On other people's sons?
I'd like to see the whole wide world
North, south, east, and west
I'd like to travel everywhere
With the girl that I love best
But I'll stay beside the Irwell
All me life before I'll stand
In some foreign country
With a bayonet in me hand.
I work each day upon the docks
And see the ships come in
And no one asks to see the colour
Of a sailor's skin
Side by side they're working men
From Norway, China, Greece
Why can't the statesmen do the same
And let us live in peace?
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2018/5/11 - 11:05
I was born on Trafford Road, Salford. It was locally known as "The Barbary Coast", after the Arab slave trafficers of North Africa. The Barbary Pirates were reponsible for capturing and enslaving people from, amongst other places, the British Isles and as far north as Iceland!
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Parole e musica di Ewan MacColl
Nel disco “New Briton Gazette, Vol. 1” (Folkways, 1960), con Peggy Seeger
Testo trovato su libretto del disco.
Una canzone scritta da MacColl per lo spettacolo teatrale “Landscape with Chimneys”, andato in scena nel 1951.
Trafford Road a Salford è la strada che la lambisce la Central Bay di Manchester con i suoi docks, attraversando il fiume Irwell tra Gnome Island e Pomona…
Il Mark .303 è un famoso fucile di costruzione inglese, prodotto a partire dal 1889 e fino ad oggi.