Country Life

Working in the rain cutting down 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 bit of grass hots up cars

Talks of travel never gets far

Loves his kids left his wife

An everyday story of country life

And the red brick cottage where I was born

Is the 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

He left the farm forever when

They only kept on one in ten

Landed gentry county snobs

Where were you when they lost their jobs

No-one marched or subsidised

To save a country way of life

Silent fields empty lanes

Drifting smoke distant flames

Picture postcard hills on fire

Cattle burning in funeral pyres

Out to graze they look so sweet

We hate the blood we want the meat

Buy me a beer I'll take my knife

Cut you a slice of country life

If you want cheap food well here's the deal

Family farms are brought to heel

Hammer blows of size and scale

Foot and mouth the final nail

The coffin of our English dream

Lies out on the village green

While agri-barons CAP in hand

Strip this green and pleasant land

Of meadow, woodland, hedgerow, pond

What remains gets built upon

No trains, jobs

No shops, no pubs

What went wrong

Country life

It's a little bit of country life