Red And Gold lyrics by Fairport Convention
RED AND GOLDFAIRPORT CONVENTION
Reference Number : 0297
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Red and gold are royal colours
Peasant colours are green and brown
Green is the corn in the brown earth when it's growing
Red and gold when the harvest is cut down
Through cropredy in Oxfordshire the cherwell takes its course
And the willows weep into its waters clear
My name it is will timms, it's here that I was born
Raised in faith my king and god to fear
In 1644 the king in Oxford town did dwell
Though he'd heard that Cromwells' army was nearby
It did not occur to me, that little cropredy
Could bear witness to the meeting of both sides
On June the twenty-ninth that year I was about my work
Cutting hedges in a meadow by the stream
My blade slipped I cut my hand my own dear blood did flow
On the brown earth and the corn still green
Now it did distress me so to watch my own blood flow
And quickly soak into the greedy ground
In red and gold my colours swam and sweat broke on my brow
Faint, I knew that I must lay me down
Red and gold are royal colours
Peasant colours are green and brown
Green is the corn in the brown earth when it's growing
Red and gold when the harvest is cut down
First I thought the thundering was just inside my head
So I raised myself above the hedge to see
And I watched as in a dream as the armies fought downstream
The battle for the bridge of cropredy
Now the Kings men fought in red and gold
Though Cromwells' men were plainer
The blood they spilled was coloured just the same
Through the hedgerows' fragile cover,
I saw brother killing brother
And all of this was done in Jesus' name
Red and gold are royal colours
Peasant colours are green and brown
Green is the corn in the brown earth when it's growing
Red and gold when the harvest is cut down
All that day and all the next the battle it was raging
Though when darkness came I slipped away
But the crying of the dying kept me wakeful and just lying
In my bed 'till the dawning of the day
And the dreams I had were red and gold,
And the little stream became a flood
From all my brothers killing one another
'Till waking I realised it was all my own dear blood
Some were buried in the church and some just where they fell
With no markers to declare their place of rest
But the poppies they do grow where they were never sown
To my mind they do declare it best
And each year when the green corn once again turns into gold
And the poppies in the field again remind me
Like the scar upon my hand, the blood spilled on this land
The hungry earth so eager to confine me, for
Red and gold they are the colours one is blood and one is power
Though I may find my rest in cropredy church
In golden fields forever will spring the poppy flower
By cropredy the cherwell is still bidden to keep flowing
And the willows by its' side still gently weep
But still in restless dreams by this most peaceful stream
The poppies wake me from my rightful sleep
And the dreams I had were red and gold,
And the little stream became a flood
From all my brothers killing one another
'Till waking I realised it was all my own dear blood
Transcribed and programmed by Brian Robinson
Copyright (C) 1992
