LyricMeaning

The Song Collector
Chumbawamba

The Folk Society meet on Thursday nights
Clear their throats and put their coughs to flight
To sing the dusty cobwebs from the room
A repertoire both in and out of tune
Don't assume a singalong, or worse
This history in song and countless verse
Pays homage to the man who, long ago
Collected all the songs the singers know
Collected all the songs the singers know

Edward Alexander, man of action
Armed only with his reel-to-reel contraption
One hundred years ago in mac and boots
Set out to faithfully preserve the region's roots
And every night in some small village inn
Fortified with fortitude and gin
Mr Alexander, for a shilling
Would thus record your song, if you were willing
Would thus record your song, if you were willing

So word got round, and soon there formed a queue
And the line of willing singers grew and grew
Brass for oohs and aahs? You can't go wrong
When there's someone paying a shilling for a song
When all his tapes are filled up, Edward leaves
There's a history preserved, so he believes
But all the so-called singers back inside
They know they took a city scholar for a ride
They know they took a city scholar for a ride

For they shook the man for every coin he'd got
With words and tunes all made up on the spot
Invented tales not twenty minutes old
So history, like ale, is bought and sold.
The old contraption's packed away and boxed
And a century is marked upon the clock
So tradition holds that Edward's great collection
Is honoured with a weekly resurrection
Honoured with a weekly resurrection

And now the old Society sing the songs
Word for word, and kept where they belong
As once again, they eulogise the past
You can hear the ghosts of history laughing last
You can hear the ghosts of history laughing last


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Lyrics by Chumbawamba

  Add Me   After Shelley   Ah-men   All In Vain   All Mixed Up   Always Tell The Voter What The Voter Wants To Hear   Amnesia [Radio Mix]   Amnesia [Single Mix]   And in a Nutshell   Buy Nothing Day   By and By   Cartrouble   Chartist Anthem   Coca-Colanisation   Come On Baby (Let's Do The Revolution)   Dance, Idiot, Dance   Drip Drip Drip   El Fusilado   Everything You Know Is Wrong   Fade Away (I Don't Want To)   Farewell to the Crown [*]   Give the Anarchist A Cigarette   Hammer, Stirrup & Anvil   Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire   Her Majesty   Hey Hey We're The Junkies   Home With Me   Hull or Hell   I Wish That They'd Sack Me   I'm Coming Out   I'm Not Sorry, I Was Having Fun   I'm With Stupid   Idris Strike Song   If It Is to Be, It Is up to Me   Introduction   Jesus In Vegas   Knickers   Ladies For Compassionate Lynching   Laughter in a Time of War   Learning To Love   Lie Lie Lie Lie   Mary, Mary   Missed   Morality Play in Three Acts   Moses With A Gun   Mr. Heseltine Meets His Public   New York Mining Disaster 1941   New York Song   Nothing Knocks Me Over   One Way or the Other   Pickle   Poverty Knock   Puccini Said   Ratatatay   Rebel Code   Rubens Has Been Shot!   Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart   Salt Fare, North Sea   Sewing up Crap   Shake Baby Shake   She's Got All The Friends   Shhh   Singing Out The Days   Slap!   Smart Bomb   Smashing Of The Van   Smith & Taylor   Social Dogma   Song for Len Shackleton   Song Of The Times   Stitch That   That Same So-So Tune   That's How Grateful We Are   The Bad Squire   The Cutty Wren   The Day the Nazi Died   The Day the Nazi Died [Live]   The Diggers Song   The Good Ship Lifestyle   The Health & Happiness Show   The Health And Happiness Show   The Land Of Do What You're Told   The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of...   The Triumph of General Ludd   The Wasteland   The Wizard of Menlo Park   The World Turned Upside Down   Three Years Later   Today's Sermon   Torturing James Hetfield   Tubthumping [*]   Tubthumping [English Version]   Tubthumping [Original Mix]   Tubthumping [Single Mix]   Ulrike   Underground   Unpindownable   Wagner At The Opera   Walking Into Battle With The Lord   When Alexander Met Emma   When An Old Man Dies   When Fine Society Sits Down to Dine   Without Reason or Rhyme   Word Bomber   Words Can Save Us   WWW Dot   You Can (Mass Trespass, 1932)

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