Story Behind The Song
The song was inspired by the view from a local hill, where a motorway (freeway) cuts a huge swathe through the countryside there.
Song Description
"From an English Hill" is a contemporary protest song concerning the urbanisation of large sections of the English countryside.
| Song Length |
4:48 |
Genre |
Folk - Contemporary, Pop - Easy Listening |
| Tempo |
Floating |
Lead Vocal |
Male Vocal |
| Mood |
Relaxed |
Subject |
General, Protest |
| Language |
English |
Era |
2000 and later |
Lyrics
From an English hill
From an English hill
Mighty cranes grow from tiny trucks in the brown field sites
The Fingers of the outskirts throttling it blue
To silence its victims like all stranglers do
From an English hill
The estates picked out in brick and in slate
Meadow replaced with municipal planting
Concrete culverts to divert the streams in
When I was young I used to swim in the rivers
A place with a rope swing, made popular with us kids there
A childish, laddish sense of bravado
Arcing the river, and then let yourself go
Bombing the water; see how deep you could go
How deep did you go? How far could you fall?
Looking back now, it was not far at all
From an English hill
The zip of an A-road stitches up the cardigan of the land
It?s an easy commute from the counties to the city
Costs a fortune to live there but isn?t it pretty
From an English hill
A rash of new builds in a dirty hue
The neat rows of terrace, mistakes of black ribbon
Binding the copse and the hedgerow now hidden
People need houses and spaces for barbecues
You do it with decking and Dianthus from B and Q
Hot tubs and lap pools; plunge pools for bathing
A wealth of devices and all labour saving
Pour on a patio and wait for it to harden
More of an outdoor room than a garden
I was raised in a small town with fields surrounding
The acres I played in, now deflowered by housing
The street names left to allude to the nature
Primrose and Foxglove now lost to the maker
And smart hanging baskets are all that remain there
To remind me of the days that I strayed there
The days that I lay there
In the town I live now
There?s a place called Pool Meadow
It sounds so idyllic, doesn?t it?
In fact it?s a bus depot
From an English hill
You can see how far we?ve come
From an English hill
You can see how far we?ve fallen
© Ian Abbott 2006
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