The Lilac Time

March To The Docks

We ran up Constitution Hill
Like we would never stop
We didn’t know we were landfill
And we’d never reach the top

Let’s march to the docks and let’s cry
They’re changing the locks on our lives
Every day another dream dies on us

We took it all for granted
They took it all away
The have it alls have it in Hampstead
The have nothings always pay

So march to the docks and let’s cry
Stop changing the locks on our lives
Every day another dream dies on us
Another dream dies.

When the wicked witch goes
We’ll be delivered from evil
But then her children are evil

When you are bound to nothing
You’re bound to everyone
So I’d rather lose myself with you
Than be saved alone and long gone

Let’s walk to the docks and lets cry
They’re changing the locks on our lives
Every day another dream dies on us

So march to the docks and let’s cry
Stop changing the locks on our lives
Every day another dream dies on us.

I wrote this in 2015 as we were rehearsing for the Port Eliot Festival. The No Sad Songs album had just come out and this was the first new song I’d written since. The Constitution Hill is in Birmingham, where I was born. I’ve just looked on the map and it seems to have got smaller, but at least it still exists unlike many roads and buildings I remember. Perhaps I was thinking of Livery Street. But that wouldn’t have been the same song at all. The last verse is a distillation of Ingrid Bergman’s final speech in Roberto Rossellini’s Europa 51. “I’d rather lose myself with them than be saved alone.” It’s the second song on the tenth Lilac Time album Return To Us. Hopefully, before too long, you’ll get to hear the rest.

sdx