George Donaldson Beeswing
I was eighteen when I came to town
They call it the Summer of Love
Burning babies, burning flags
The Hawks against the Doves
Well, I took a job at the Steamie
Way down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl
She was working next to me
Brown hair zig-zagged round her face
The look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights
There was animal in her eyes
Well, she said to me “Can't you see
I'm not the factory kind and
If you don't take me out of here
I'll lose my mind.”
CHORUS
She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
“So long as there's no price in love, I'll stay
You wouldn't want me any other way.”
We busked around the market towns
From picking down in Kent
We could tinker pots and pans
And knives wherever we went
We were camping around the Gower
And the work was pretty good
She wouldn't wait for the harvest
I thought we should
Well I said to her we'll settle down
We'll get a few acres dug
With a fire burning in the hearth
And babies on the rug
She said “Now man, you foolish man
That surely sounds like hell
You might be lord of half the world
You'll not own me as well.”
CHORUS
We were drinking more in those days
'Til our tempers reached a pitch
Like a fool I let her run away
When she took the rambling itch
At the last I'd heard she's living rough
Back on Derby beat
With a bottle of White Horse in her pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet
Oh they say that she get married once
To a man named Romany Brown
But even a Gypsy caravan
Was too much like settling down
(Erin Boyle)
They say her rose is faded now
Rough weather and hard booze
But maybe that's the price you pay
For the chains you refuse
(Both)
She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste
All of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Then I wouldn't want her any other way
If I could hold her in my arms today
I wouldn't want her any other way
