The Liberty Of Norton Folgate

This is the story of the Liberty of Norton Folgate

Old Jack Norris, the musical shrimp and the cadging ramble

A little bit of this, would you like a bit of that?

But in weather like this, you should wear a coat, a nice warm hat

A needle and thread, the hand stitches of time

The cattling Lavinski versus Jackie Burke

Bobbing and weaving an invisible line

So step for step and both light on our feet

We'll travel many a long, dim, silent street

Would you like a bit of this or a little bit of that, missus?

A little bit of what you like does you no harm, you know that

The perpetual steady echo of the passing beat

A continual dark river of people

In their transience and in its permanence

But when the streetlamp fills the gutter with gold

So many priceless items bought and sold

So step for step and both light on our feet

We'll travel many a long, dim, silent street together

Once 'round Arnold Circus, up through Petticoat Lane

Past The Well of Shadows and once back round again

Arm in arm with an abstracted air

To where the people stared at the upstairs windows

Because we are living like kings and these days will last forever

'Cause sailors from Africa, China and the Archipelago of Malay

Jump ship ragged and penniless into Shadwell's Tiger Bay

The Welsh and Irish Wagtails, mothers of midnight

The music hall carousal is spilling out into bonfire light

Sending half crazed shadows, giants dancing up the brick wall

Of Mr.Truman's beer factory waving bottles ten feet tall

Whether one calls it Spitalfields, Whitechapel

Tower Hamlets or Bangle Town

We're all dancing in the moonlight

We're all on borrowed ground

Oh, I'm just walking down to, I'm just floating down through

Won't you come with me to the Liberty of Norton Folgate?

But wait, what's that?

Dan Leno and a Limehouse Golem

Purposefully walking nowhere

Oh, I'm happy just floating about, have a banana

On a Sunday afternoon

The stall holders all call and shout to no-one in particular

Avoiding people you know

You're just basking in your own company

The Technicolor worlds going by

But you're the lead in your own movie

'Cause in the Liberty of Norton Folgate walking wild and free

In your second hand coat, happy just to float

In this little taste of liberty

A part of everything you see

They're coming left or right

Trying to flog you stuff you don't need or want

And a smiling chap takes your hand

And drags you in his uncle's restaurant

There's a Chinese man trying hard to flog you moody DVDs

You know you've seen the film

It's black and white, it's got no sound

And a man's head pops up and down right across you wide screen TV

Only a fiver

Alright two for eight quid

'Cause in the Liberty of Norton Folgate walking wild and free

In your second hand coat, happy just to float

In this little piece of liberty

You're a part of everything you see

'Cause it's steady old fellows, pickpockets

Dandies, extortioners and night wanderers

The feeble, the ghastly

Upon whom death had placed a very sure hand

Some in shreds and patches

Reeling inarticulate full of noisy and inordinate vivacity

Which jars discordantly upon the ear

And it gives an aching sensation to both pair of eyeballs

In the beginning I'd the fear of the immigrant

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

He's made his way down to the dark riverside

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

He made his home there by the dark riverside

He made his home there down by the riverside

They made their homes there down by the riverside

The city sprang from the dark river Thames

They made their home there down by the riverside

They made their homes there down by the riverside

The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames

I say it again

'Cause in the Liberty of Norton Folgate walking wild and free

And in your second hand coat, happy just to float

In this little taste of liberty

'Cause you're a part of everything you see

Yes, you're a part of everything you see

With a little bit of this and a little bit of that

A little bit of what you like does you no harm and you know that