Madness - The Liberty of Norton Folgate lyrics

rate me

This is the story of the Liberty of Norton Folgate

Old Jack Norris, 'The Musical Shrimp'

And the cadging ramble

A little bit of this

Would you like a bit of that?

But in weather like this

You should wear a coat, a nice warm hat

A needle and thread

The hand stitches of time

Battling Lavinski versus Jackie Burke

Bobbing and weaving an invisible line

So step for step and both light on our feet

We'll travel many a long, dim, silent street

Would you like a bit of this

Or a little bit of that missus

A little bit of what you like does you no harm

You know that

The perpetual steady echo of the passing beat

A continual dark river of people

In their transience and in its permanence

But when the streetlamp fills the gutter with gold

So many priceless items bought and sold

So step for step and both light on our feet

We'll travel many a long, dim, silent street - together

Once round Arnold Circus

Up through Petticoat Lane

Past The Well of Shadows

And once back round again

Arm in arm with an abstracted air, to where

The people stared at the upstairs windows

Because we are living like kings

And these days will last forever

Cos sailors from Africa, China and the Archipelago of Malay

Jump ship ragged and penniless into Shadwell's Tiger Bay

The Welsh and Irish Wagtails - mothers of midnight

The music hall carousal is spilling out into bonfire light

Sending half crazed shadows, giants

Dancing up the brick wall

Of Mr. Truman's beer factory

Waving bottles ten feet tall

Whether one calls it Spitalfields, Whitechapel,

Tower Hamlets or Bangle Town

We're all dancing in the moonlight

We're all on borrowed ground

Oh I'm just walking down to

I'm just floating down through

Won't you come with me?

To the Liberty of Norton Folgate

But wait, what's that

Dan Leno and a Lime house Gollum

Purposefully walking nowhere

Oh I'm happy just floating about (have a banana)

On a Sunday afternoon

The stall holders all call and shout (to no-one in particular)

Avoiding people you know

You're just basking in your own company

The Technicolor worlds going by

But you're the lead in your own movie

Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate

Walking wild and free

In your second hand coat

Happy just to float

In this little taste of liberty

A part of everything you see

There coming left or right

Trying to flog you stuff you don't need or want

And a smiling chap takes your hand and drags you

In his uncles restaurant (here, here, here, here)

There's a Chinese man trying hard to flog you moody DVDs

You know you've seen the film, its black and white, it's got no sound

And a man's head pops up and down right across you wide screen TV

Only a fiver (how much?)

Alright two for eight quid

(‘Ere y'ar, look look, I'm giving it away)

Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate

Walking wild and free

In your second hand coat

Happy just to float

In this little piece of liberty

You're a part of everything you see

Cos it's steady old fellows, pickpockets,

dandies, extortioners and night wanderers

The feeble, the ghastly upon whom death had placed a very sure hand

Some in shreds and patches,

reeling inarticulate full of noisy and inordinate vivacity

Which jars discordantly upon the ear and

give an aching sensation to both pair of eyeballs

(noisy and inordinate vivacity)

In the beginning I'd the fear of the immigrant

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

He's made his way down to the dark riverside

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant

He made his home there by the dark riverside

He made his home there down by the riverside

They made their homes there down by the riverside

The city sprang from the dark river Thames

They made their home there down by the riverside

They made their homes there down by the riverside

The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames

I say it again

Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate

Walking wild and free

And in your second hand coat

Happy just to float

In this little taste of liberty

Cos you're a part of everything you see

Yes you're a part of everything you see

With a little bit of this

And a little bit of that

A little bit of what you like does you no harm

You know that