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www.pollyharvey.co.uk
 


Let England Shake (2011)

Let England Shake (Harvey)
The Last Living Rose (Harvey)
The Glorious Land (Harvey)
The Words That Maketh Murder (Harvey)
All And Everyone (Harvey)
On Battleship Hill (Harvey)
England (Harvey)
In The Dark Places (Harvey)
Bitter Branches (Harvey)
Hanging In The Wire (Harvey)
Written On The Forehead (Harvey)
The Colour Of The Earth (Harvey)






Let England Shake

The West's asleep
Let England shake
Weighted down with silent dead
I fear our blood won't rise again, won't rise again

England's dancing days are done
Another day, Bobby, for you to come home
Home and tell me indifference
Is won, won, won

Smile, smile Bobby, with your lovely mouth
Pack up your troubles, and let's head out
To the fountain of death and splash about, Swim back and forth, back, back
And laugh out loud

Until the day is ending
And the birds are silent
And the insects are courting
And by the shores
Heavy stones are falling

Smile, smile Bobby, with your lovely mouth
Pack up your troubles, and let's head out
To the fountain of death and splash about, Swim back, forth, back, back
And laugh out loud





The Last Living Rose

Goddamn Europeans
Take me back to England
And the grey, damp filthiness of ages and battered books
And fog rolling down behind the mountains
On the graveyards and dead sea captains

Let me walk through the stinking alleys
To the music of drunken beatings
Past the Thames river, glistening like gold
Hastily sold for nothing, nothing

Let me watch night fall on the river
Moon rise up and turn to silver
The sky move, the ocean shimmer
The hedge shake, the last living rose quiver




The Glorious Land

How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs
How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs
Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet, feet marching
Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet, feet marching

Oh America, Oh England
Oh America, Oh England

How is our glorious country sown?
Not with wheat and corn
How is our glorious country sown?
Not with wheat and corn
How is our glorious land bestowed?

How is our glorious land bestowed?

Oh America, Oh England
Oh America, Oh England

And what is the glorious fruit of our land?
The fruit is deformed children
What is the glorious fruit of our land?
The fruit is orphaned children




The Words That Maketh Murder

I have seen and done things I want to forget
I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat
Blown and shot out beyond belief
Arms and legs were in the trees

I have seen and done things I want to forget
Coming from an unearthly place
Longing to see a woman's face
Instead of the words that gather pace
The words that maketh murder
These, these are the words
The words that maketh murder
These, these are the words
The words that maketh murder

I have seen and done things I want to forget
I've seen a corporal who's nerves were shot
Climbing behind a fierce, gone sun
I've seen flies swarming everyone
Soldiers fell like lumps of meat
These are the words, the words are these
Death lingering and stunk
Flies swarming everyone
Over the whole summit peak
Flesh quivering in the heat
This was something else again
I fear it cannot explain
The words that make, the words that maketh murder

What if i take my problems to the United Nations?
What if i take my problems to the United Nations?




All And Everyone

Death was everywhere, in the air
And in the sounds coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge
Death's anchorage
When you rolled a smoke or told a joke
It was in the laughter and drinking water
It approached the beach as strings of cutters
Dropped into the sea and lay around us

Death was in the ancient fortress
Shelled by a million bullets
From gunners, waiting in the copses
With hearts that threatened to pop their boxes
As we advanced into the sun
Death was all and everyone
Death was all and everyone

As we, advancing, in the sun
As we, advancing, every man
As we, advancing, in the sun

Death hung in the smoke and clung
To 400 acres of useless beachfront
A bank of red earth, dripping down
Death is now, and now, and now
Death was everywhere, in the air
And in the sounds coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge
Death's anchorage
Death was in the staring sun
Fixing it's eyes on everyone
It rattled the bones of the Light Horsemen
Still lying out there in the open

As we, advancing, in the sun
As we, advancing, every man
As we, advancing, in the sun
Sing "Death to all and everyone"




On Battleship Hill

The scent of Thyme carried on the wind
Stings my face into remembering
That nature has won again
That nature has won again

On Battleship Hill's caved in trenches
A hateful feeling still lingers
Even now, eighty years later
Cruel nature, cruel cruel nature

The land returns to how it has always been
Thyme carried on the wind
Jagged mountains, jutting out
Cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth
On Battleship Hill I hear the wind say
Cruel nature has won again
Cruel nature has won again
Cruel nature has won again
Cruel nature has won again




England

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness

Remedies, never were
Within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
I cannot leave

A withered vine
Reaching from the country that I love
England
You leave a taste, a bitter one

I have searched for your springs
But people stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you England, I cling

Undaunted, never failing love for you
England




In The Dark Places

We got up early
Washed our faces
Walked the fields
And put up crosses
Passed through
Damned mountains
Went hellwards
And some of us returned
And some of us did not

In the fields and in the forests
Under the moon and under the sun
Another summer has passed before us
And not one man has
And not one woman has
Revealed the secrets of this world

So our young men
Hid with guns
In the dirt
And in the dark places
Our young men
Hid with guns
In the dirt
And in the dark places

Not one man has
Not one woman has
Revealed the secrets of this world




Bitter Branches

Bitter branches, spreading out
There is none more bitter than the wood
Into the white world it grows
Twisting under soldier's feet
Standing in lines in the damp earth underneath
Holding up their rifles high
Holding their young wives, who wave goodbye

Hold up the clear glass to look and see
Soldiers standing and the roots twist underneath
Their young wives with white hands, wave goodbye
Their arms as bitter branches, speading into the world

Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
They wave goodbye




Hanging In The Wire

Walker sees the mist rise
Over a no-mans land
He sees in front of him
A smashed up waste-ground
There are no fields or trees
No blades of grass
Just unburied ghosts are there
Hanging in the wire

Walker's in the wire
Limbs point upwards
There are no birds singing
"The White Cliffs Of Dover"
There are no trees to sing from
Walker cannot hear the wind
Far off, a symphony
D'ya hear the guns beginning?

Walker's in the mist, rising
Over no-mans land
In the battered waste-ground
The big guns firing




Written On The Forehead

People throwing dinars at the belly dancers
In a sad circus by a trench of burning oil

People throw belongings, a life-time's earnings
Amongst the scattered rubbish and suitcases on the sidewalk

Date palms and orange and tangerine trees
And eyes are crying for everything

(Let it burn, burn burn burn, blood and fire)

So i talked to an old man by the generator
He was standing on the gravel by the fetid river

He turned to me and then surveyed the scene
Said "War is here in our beloved city"

(Let it burn, burn burn burn, blood and fire)

Some dove in the river and tried to swim away
Through tons of sewage, fate written on their foreheads

Date palms and orange and tangerine trees
And eyes are crying for everything

Let it burn
Let it burn
Let it burn, burn, burn




The Colour Of The Earth

Louis was my dearest friend fighting in the Anzac trench
Louis ran forward from the line and I never saw him again

Later in the dark I thought I heard Louis' voice
Calling for his mother, then me, but I couldn't get to him

He's still up on that hill, twenty years on that hill
Nothing more than a pile of bones, but I think of him still

If I was asked I'd tell the colour of the earth that day
It was dull and browny-red, "The colour of blood" I'd say