Fraser Bruce 

RISE UP JOCK (Bob & Carole Pegg/Logo Songs/Heathside Music)

 

 

 

As I went out one morning, to take the pleasant air,
The birds sang in the bushes, and the weather, it was fair
I sat for a while to rest my back, against a shady oak,
When by there came a band of men with faces black as smoke

 

Chorus:

Rise up Jock and sing a song,
For the summer is short and the winter long,
And we’ll all join hands and form a chain
While the leaves of springtime bloom again.

Now, the first come was a soldier, with the rifle in his hand,
He had just returned from fighting wars, in some far distant land,
He’s left his regiment sleeping at the foot of a foreign hill,
He has marched back home again, to kill and to be killed.

 

The next come was a sailor, he’d just returned from sea,
He’s sailed the world for seven years, before he was set free,
That evening as the sun went down, he anchored by the shore,
He has sailed back home again to fight one battle more.

 

In the middle of the forest, the blackbird it did sing,
As the soldier and sailor took their places all inside a ring,
And when the battle started they went at it blow by blow,
And when the battle ended, down their backs the blood did flow.

 

Well a doctor and a chimney sweep came walking arm in arm,
And when they saw the bodies there, well they thought no alarm,
For the doctor had been travelling, in Italy and Spain,
And he had in his pouch a tiny flask, to ease all aches and pain.

 

He gave a drink to the soldier, who was lying on the ground,
And he jumped up and sang a song as he passed the bottle round,
And the sailor jumped up from the ground, as sure as he was born
And the soldier, the sailor, the sweep and the doctor

Danced right through the dawn.