Salvation Band
(G) C - / C G7 / F C / C G C
When I was just a little kid
On a Sunday morning early
Salvation band come down our street
To make their hurly-burly
Well they all stood around in a great big ring
And they started blowing cornets
And all the kids from miles around
Come a-swarming round like hornets
Salvation band with a big trombone
And the music fair goes through you
With their Onward Christian Soldiers
And their Glory Hallelujahs.
There were scores and scores and scores of kids,
Perhaps there were even thirty
And goodness knows who owned them all
But they all looked filthy dirty
There were Jackson's kid from across the street
And he were a right young villain
When collection box come around to him
He made off with fifteen shillings.
Now man, as stood and waved a big stick
Looked tall as half the houses
He'd got a grand new uniform
With gold braid down his trousers
Behind him ran little Tommy Jones
With his young grey pup called Dusty
And pup must have thought that man was a tree
'Cause gold braid's gone all rusty
Now rest didn't think band was up to much,
But me, I didn't mind 'em
So when they marched off down the street,
I marched off right behind 'em
Well they marched up t'other side of town,
Streets I'd never been in
And they ended in the back of a public house,
As my dada said I couldn't be seen in
When policemen fetched me home that night
They'd had their dinner without me
And when my dad found out where I'd been
I knew for a fact he'd clout me
Well I got buckle end of my dad's pit-strap
And that were plenty for me
I've never followed that band again,
And that's the end of me story.
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By Roger Watson, author of many first-rate songs about goings-on
in his native Derbyshire. This was one of his earliest.
Recorded by John Roberts and Tony Barrand on "Mellow with Ale
from the Horn", FHR-04
DC
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!