Tune: The Limerick Rake
1.
I am an old timer, I travel the road;
I sit on me wagon and lumber me load;
My hotel is the jungle, a caf's me abode
And I'm well known to Blondie and Mary.
My liquor is diesel - oil laced with strong tea,
The old highway code was my first ABC,
And I cut my eyeteeth on an old A. E. C.,
And I'm champion at keeping 'em rolling

2.
I've sat in my cabin aid broiled in the sun,
Been snowed-up on Shap on the Manchester run;
I've crawled through the fog with my twenty-two tons
Of fish that was stinking like blazes.
From London to Glasgow, to the Newcastle Quay,
From Liverpool, Preston and Bristol City
The polones on the road give the thumbs-sign to me
For I'm champion at keeping 'em rolling

3.
You may sing of your soldiers and sailors so bold
But there's many and many a hero untold
Who sits at the wheel in the heat and the cold
Day after day without sleeping.
So watch out for cops and slow down at the bends,
Check all your gauges and watch your big-ends
And zig with your lights when you pass an old friend,
You'll be a champion at keeping 'em rolling

Trafford Road Ballad

2.
I have a little baby, he's the apple of my eye;
Then I think about his future my thoughts take wing and fly.
What kind of future can there be with tanks and planes and guns,
With flying high and dropping bombs on North Korea's sons?

3.
I'd like to see the whole wide world, the 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 my life before I'll stand
On the wide banks of the Volga with a bayonet in my hand.

4.
I work each day upon the docks and see the ships come in,
No one cares about 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.

Manchester Hiker's Song
(AKA The Manchester Rambler)

Chorus
I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way,
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way.
I may be a wage slave on Monday,
But I am a free man on Sunday.

2.
There's pleasure in dragging thro' peat-bogs and bragging
Of all the fine walks that you know;
There's even a measure of some kind of pleasure
In wading through ten feet of snow!
I've stood on the edge of the Downfall
And seen all the valleys outspread,
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

(Chorus)

3.
The day was just ending as I was descending
Through Grindsbrook by Upper-Tor,
When a voice cried, "Hey , you!" in the way keepers do,
(He'd the worst face that ever I saw).
The things that he said were unpleasant;
In the teeth of his fury I said
That sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

(Chorus)

4.
He called me a louse and said, "Think of the grouse."
Well - I thought but I still couldn't see
Why old Kinder Scout and the moors round about
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me.
He said, "All this land is my master's!"
At that I stood shaking my head, -
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed.

(Chorus)

5.
I once loved a maid, a spot-welder by trade,
She was fair as the rowan in bloom,
And the blue of her eye mocked the June moorland sky,
And I loved her from April to June.
On the day that we should have been married
I went for a ramble instead;
For sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

(Chorus) .

6.
So I'll walk where I will over mountain and hill
And I'll lie where the bracken is deep;
I belong to the mountains, the clear running fountains
Where the grey rocks rise rugged and steep.
I have seen the white hare in the galleys
And the curlew fly high overhead,
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead.

(Chorus) .

Browned off

1.
I used to be a civvy, chum, as decent as can be;
I used to think a working lad had a man's right to be free;
And then one day they made a lousy soldier out of me
And told me I had got to save democracy.

Chorus
Oh, I was browned off, browned off, browned off as can be,
Browned off, browned off, an easy mark that's me;
But when the war is over and again I'm free,
There'll be no more ruddy soldiering for me

2.
They stuck me in a convict's suit, they made me cut me hair,
They took me civvy shoes away, they gave me another pair;
Instead of grub they gave me slush and plenty of fresh air,
And this was all to help to save democracy.
(Chorus).

3.
Now every day I'm on parade long before the dawn
And every day I curse the ruddy day that I was born;
For I am just a browned-off soldier, anyone can see,
They browned me off to help to save democracy.
(Chorus).

4.
The colonel kicks the major, then the major has a go,
He kicks the poor old captain, who then kicks the N.C.O.,
And as the kicks get harder the poor private, you can see,
Gets kicked to ruddy-hell to save democracy.
(Chorus).

Fourpence a day

1.
The ore is waiting in the tubs , the snow is on the fell;
Canny folks are sleeping yet the lead is reet to sell;
Come my little washer lad, come, let's away,
We're bound down to slavery for four-pence a day

2.
It's early in the morning we rise at five o'clock
And the little slaves come to the door to knock,knock,knock.
Come, my little washer lad, come, let's away,
It's very hard to work for fourpence a day.

3.
My father was a miner and lived down in the town;
'Twas hard work and poverty that always kept him down.
He aimed for me to go to school but brass he couldn't pay
So I had to go to the waching rake for fourpence a day.

4.
My mother rises out of bed with tears on her cheeks,
Puts my wallet on my shoulders which has to serve a week.
It often fills her great big heart when she unto me does say,
"I never thought thou would have worked for fourpence a day.

5.
Fourpence a day, my lad, and very hard to work
And never a pleasant look from a gruffy looking Turk.
His conscience it may fail and his heart it may give way,
Then he'll raise us our wages to ninepence a day.

The Singing Voice of Japan, formed after the Second World War, had a choir of 5000 by 1955. This song (original title - We Will Never Allow Another Atom Bomb to Fall), written and arranged by Koki Kinoshita, caught on in England in 1955 and has played a big part in numerous peace campaigns.
Ewan MacColl's English text was sung on the Aldermaston Marches by the London Youth Choir.
The film of the 1960 march, "Deadly the Harvest', took its title from the song.

Easter. 1958. The worst weather for a century: a thin trickle of cars along the road that leads out of London, through Slough and Reading and past a turning to Aldermaston-Britain's most secret industry. The home of the hydrogen bomb. Trudging along that road was a column of five hundred men and women, drenched but not dispirited. They marched to declare their belief that Britain should renounce nuclear weapons. Those who watched wondered what it was all about, or dismissed the marchers as a handful of cranks.

Easter, 1959. Breaking through to the front pages and the television screen, the second Aldermaston march has become an event of national importance. This time the marchers are numbered by the thousand. They look like-and they are-an impressive cross-section of British life.

Easter, 1960. The third Aldermaston march makes history as the greatest demonstration Britain has seen for more than a century. Forty thousand marchers are in the column that winds through the London streets to Trafalgar Square, itself packed to capacity before the march arrives. As the great meeting in the Square gets under way, the crowd is so vast that its numbers can only be guessed at. But a police inspector pointing out that the rally "is certainly bigger than the crowds here for V. E. Day and even bigger than the Coronation crowds," puts the number at 100,000.

Join in the line (written with Denise Kerr)

(Chorus): Brother, won't you join in the line?
Brother, won't you join in the line?
If you want to keep on breathing, join us m the line.
Come and save the world, man, you're only just in time.

They say they've got a clean bomb, where the fall-out doesn't fall,
But to me the best bomb is the bomb that isn't there at all!
You ask for decent houses and they give you bombs instead,
A six-foot hole to house you in and a medal when you're dead.

The Government is working. toiling night and day -
Planning your destruction in a scientific way:
They ask for you to trust them and let them have their head,
You'll find you have no problems, but you'll also find you're dead.

The ballad of five fingers

Five fingers has the hand, five fingers, five fingers.
Four fingers and a thumb. say it either way.
Four and one add up to five, that number helped us stay alive;
Helped the human race survive up to the present day.

Five fingers and the brain, five fingers, five fingers.
Five fingers and the brain made a pact one day.
The brain it said "We'll make a team, the best the world has ever seen.
We'll pool resources, work and scheme and that without delay".

Five fingers and the brain, five fingers, five fingers.
Five fingers and the brain went to work that day;
Made a spear and made a bow, laid the mighty jungles low;
Learned to hunt and make things grow and mould things out of clay.

Five fingers and the brain, five fingers, five fingers.
Five fingers and the brain, busy at work and play.
Making music, carvmg bone, painting pictures, working alone;
Learning all that can be known and growing every day.

Five fingers and the brain, five fingers, five fingers
Five fingers and the brain, working night and day.
Built the world and then got smart, opened up the atom's heart.
The fingers said "It's time to part and go our separate way.'.

Five fingers and the brain, five fingers, five fingers.
Five fingers and the brain, quarrelling night and day.
They've got the know-how and the skill, to make and build, destroy and kill
The choice is theirs for good or ill to find the human way.

THAT BOMB HAS GOT TO GO!

We're marching on Trafalgar Square, Oh yes, oh!
Today we're marching to declare that bomb has got to go!

That bomb it weighs a ton or so;
Can kill a million at one go.

The old folks and the kids at school;
They all repeat this golden rule.

I asked my girl to marry me;
She said - Of course, if you'll agree

I had a dream the other night;
I dreamed the Tories saw the light.

MacMillan spoke in Parliament;
Let's stop this damned rearmament.

Fall-out here and fall-out there;
And strontium 90 everywhere.

This overcrowded world is small;
But it's better than no world at all.

Oh dropping bombs is all the rage;
But I'd rather live to a ripe old age.

The Prince was born the other day;
The very first words I heard him say

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust;
If the bomb doesn't get you then the fall-out must..

The Challenge was the paper of the Young Communist League. Ewan had joined the YCL in 1929 and wrote The Manchester YCL Song a couple of years later. By the time this songbook was published, in 1961, Ewan's songwriting had much improved!

Young Unemployed, who by means test are bled, Close up the ranks in the struggle for bread, Comrades from spindle, machine and the mine, Led by Young Communists fall into line Chorus Forward young workers, come surging ahead, Hacking the pathway that our class must tread. Smash the oppression and boss class greed. Led by the fighting Young Commmunist League Comrades from sports fields and Salford dark mills, Hikers who tramp over Derbyshire Hills, In factory and sports fields we fight for our rights, Against speed up and wages cuts, for access to heights. Young workers from Cheetham who slave day by day, In waterproof factories for starvation pay. Young engineers and girls from the loom, Workers from Salford -from Cheetham and Hulme

Here is a contents list for the songbook. Ewan's songs are in bold

Go Down, You Murders

In 1953 Timothy John Evans was sentenced and executed for the murder of his child. It was generally assumed that he had murdered his wife also, although he accused Christie, the mass-murderer of Notting Hill Gate, from the dock of having committed both murders. The accusations were swept aside, but when Christie was later tried for the murder of his own wife he confessed to the murder of Mrs Evans. The case made a profound impression an British public opinion and is quoted frequently in the campaign for the abolition of capital punishment.

Tim Evans was a prisoner,
Fast in his prison cell,
And those who read about his crime,
They damned his soul to hell
Saying "Go down you murderer, go down!

For the murder of his own wife
And the killing of his own child,
The jury found him guilty
And the hanging Judge be smiled.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down

Now Evan pleaded innocent
And swore by him on high,
That he never killed his own dear wife
Nor caused his child to die.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

They moved him out at five o'clock
To his final flowery-dell,
And day and night two screws were there
And never left his cell.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

Sometimes they played draughts with him,
And solo and pontoon,
To stop him brooding on the rope
That was to be his doom.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

They brought his grub in on a tray,
There was eggs and meat and ham,
And all the snout that he could smoke
Was there at his command.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

The governor came in one day,
The chaplain by his side;
Says, "Your appeal has been turned down,
Prepare yourself to die."
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

So Evans walked in the prison yard
And the screws they walked behind,
And he saw the sky above the wall
And he knew no peace of mind.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

They carne for him at eight o'clock
And the chaplain read a prayer,
Aid then they walked him to that place
Where the hangman did prepare.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

The rope was fixed around his neck,
And the buckle behind his ear;
Aid the prison bell was tolling
But Tim Evans did not hear.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

A thousand lags were cursing
And a banging on the doors,
Tim Evans could not hear them,
He was deaf for evermore.
Saying, go down, you murderer, go down!

Thcy sent Tim Evans to the drop
For a crime he didn't do;
It was Christy was the murderer
And the judge and jury too.
Saying, go down, you murderers, go down!

He's gane frae the shipyard that stands on the Clyde;
His hammer is silent, his tools laid aside;
To the wide Ebro river young Foyers has gone,
To fecht by the side o' the people of Spain.

There wasna' his equal at work or at play,
He was strang in the union till his dying day;
He was grand at the fitba', at the dance he was braw,
O, young Jamie Foyers was the floo'er o' them a'.

He cam' frae the shipyard, took off his working claes,
O, I mind the time weel in the long summer days;
He said: Fare ye weel, lassie, I'll come back again.
But young Jamie Foyers in battle was slain.

In the fight for Belchite he was aye to the fore,
He focht at Gandesa till he couldna' fecht more;
He lay owre his machine gun wi' a bullet in his brain
And young Jamie Foyers in battle was slain.

Far distant, far distant, lies Foyers the brave.
No tombstone memorial shall hallow his grave;
His bones they are scattered on the rude soil of Spain,