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I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love,
They were burning babies, burning flags, the hawks against the doves;
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street,
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me.
Oh, she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing,
So fine, a breath of wind might blow her away;
She was a lost child, oh, she was running wild.
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay;
And you wouldn't want me any other way."
Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise,
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes;
She said "Young man, oh, can't you see I'm not the factory kind,
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind."
Oh, she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing,
So fine that I might crush her where she lay;
She was a lost child, she was running wild.
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay;
And you wouldn't want me any other way."
We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent,
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went;
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug,
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug.
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well."
Oh, she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing,
So fine, a breath of wind might blow her away;
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild.
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay;
And you wouldn't want me any other way."
We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good,
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost, and I thought maybe we should;
We was drinking more in those days, and tempers reached a pitch,
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch.
Oh, the last I heard she's sleeping rough, back on the Derby beat,
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet;
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown,
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down.
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze,
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse.
Oh, she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing,
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,
Well, I wouldn't want her any other way.
The YouTube video above features a variant arranged and performed by Christy Moore with Declan Sinnot live from Dublin, Ireland, on October 21, 2005.
A variant was arranged and recorded by Jason Whelan, former member of Newfoundland bands Connemara, Plankerdown Band, and the Punters (Blur, trk#6, 2002, self produced at The Sound Solution, St. John's, NL.
The YouTube video below features an excellent cover performance by Stephen Rowe of Heart's Delight and Gander, NL.
