Slow Train

On the slow train

Miller's Dale for Tideswell
Kirby Muxloe
Mow Cop and Scholar Green

No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won't be meeting again
On the Slow Train

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton, I'll stand well clear of the doors, no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again
On the Slow Train

On the Main Line and the goods' siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt
The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate

No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They've all passed out of our lives

On the Slow Train
On the Slow Train

Cockermouth for Buttermere
On the Slow Train
Armley Moor Arram
Pye Hill and Somercotes
On the Slow Train
Windmill End

Right, curious thing, I don't think any of you have ever thought of this
But, um, England hasn't really got a national song
I mean, you know, just for England, there's plenty for Great Brittan
But that's quite different, you've got to be careful how you use those term, too

The rule is, if we do anything good
It's another triumph for Great Britain
And if we haven't, "England loses again"

Have you noticed that?
All the others, they've got songs about their countries
You know the Scots, like Scotland for I
Or for me as it should it more properly be

The Welsh and Irish who got songs, saying how marvelous they are
Making rude remarks about the English in their own languages
Fate of the Welsh, I think this is the Pot calling the suspect Vark
What, what, what English national song have we got?
Jerusalem (ha-ha-ha)

They'll always be an England, well that doesn't say much, is it?
I mean, they'll always be a North pole
Some dangerous clown doesn't go melt it

I think the reason for this is, um
In the old days, you have the gold old days when I was a boy
People didn't, we didn't bother in England about nationalism
I mean nationalism is on it's way out
We got pretty well everything we wanted
And we didn't got around saying how marvelous we were
Everybody knew that, anymore than we bothered to put our name on our stamp

I mean there's only two kind stamps
English stamps, insects, and the beginning of the album foreign stamps
Or mixed up with the other things
Any gibbon could tell you that

But nowadays, nowadays, nationalism is on the up and up
And everybody has a national song but us
Americans have national songs
Like, my country it is of thee
Which they sing to the tune of God save the queen, I may say

And which together with their long range forecasting of our weather
I find hard to believe
Yes, the Gers, whatever you say about the Germans, and who doesn't?
The marvelous, what a marvelous song that was
Germans, German overalls
Now there's this

We, well the moment is come and not too soon
We have a song here
Now the song here which I think fill this long void
But my hope that all true born English men and women in our audience would join in
The last chorus

And if you don't have the fortune to be English true born
Or a man or a woman
I hope, I hope you're joining is an ordinary mark of simple decent respect
This song starts, I think with very typical English understatement