Beeswing

I came to town and they called it the summer

I came to town and they called it the summer

I was nineteen when I came to town

and they called it the summer of love

they were burning babies, burning flags

there were hawks against the doves

I got a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street

fell in love with a laundry girl

who was working next to me

Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing

so fine a breath of wind might blow her away

she was a lost child, oh she was a running wild

she said, "As long as there's no price on love,

As long as there's no price on love

As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay

wouldn't want me any other way"

I came to town and they called it the summer

I came to town and they called it the summer

Brown hair zig-zag around her face

and a look of half surprise

like a fox caught in the headlights

there was animal in her eyes

she said, "Young man, can't you see

I'm not the factory kind

if you don't take me out of here

I'll surely lose my mind"

We busked around the market towns

and picked fruit down in Kent

we could tinker lamps and pots

and knives wherever we went

and I said that we might settle down

get a few acres dug

fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug

She said "Oh man, you foolish man

it surely sounds like hell

you may be Lord of half the world

but you'll not own me as well"

We was camping down the Gower one time

and the work was pretty good

she thought we shouldn't wait for the drost

and I thought maybe we should

we was drinking more in those days

and tempers reached a pitch

like a fool I let her run

with the rambling itch

On the last I heard she's sleeping rough

back on the Derby beat

White Horse in her hip pocket

and a wolfhound at her feet

and they even say she married once

a man named Romany Brown

but even a gypsy caravan

was too much settling down

And they say her flower is faded now

hard weather and hard booze

but maybe that's the price

you pay for the chains you refuse