Cousin Jack

This land is barren and broken,

Scarred like the face of the moon

Our tongue no longer spoken

The towns all around face ruin

Will there be work in New Brunswick?

Or will I find gold in the Cape?

If I tunnel way down to Australia

How will I ever escape?

Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground

That's what I'm heading for that's where I'm bound

Look for me under the lode or inside the vein,

Where the copper, the clay, where the arsenic and tin

Run in your blood they get under your skin

I'm leaving the county behind and I'm not coming back

So follow me down Cousin Jack.

The soil was too poor to make Eden,

Granite and sea left no choice

Though visions of heaven sustained us,

When John Wesley gave us a voice

Did Joseph once come to St Michaels Mount?

Two thousand years pass in a dream

When you're working your way in the darkness,

Deep in the heart of the seam.

Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground

That's what I'm heading for that's where I'm bound

So look for me under the lode or inside the vein,

Where the copper, the clay, where the arsenic and tin

Run in your blood they get under your skin

I'm leaving the county behind and I'm not coming back

So follow me down Cousin Jack.

I dream of a bridge cross the Tamar

It opens us up to the East

In my dreams I see English living in our houses

I see Spanish fishing in our seas

Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground

That's what I'm heading for that's where I'm bound

So look for me under the lode or inside the vein,

Where the copper, the clay, where arsenic and tin

Run in your blood and under your skin

I'm leaving the county behind and I'm not coming back

So follow me down Cousin Jack.