The River Runs

Latin Quarter - The Imagination of Thieves

Lyrics

The hands are dusty and the ground is dry
Like the ink on this page but I can rewrite it
A Mars a day helps you work, rest and wash
5 cigarettes a day, are you counting the cost?
Arms outstretched, Palms to the sky
Catch the tears of the World drifting by.

With meters of pipe, the river runs dry
The bringer of life, the river runs by
For comic relief, the rivers run
With sheer disbelief, the river runs.

It ran from the springs and into the wells
Gaunt child’s eyes and the images that sells
O’ the boarded waterways that ran in the streets
£3 a month, a shilling a week
For hundred of years, the water was needed
The riverbed dry. The earth left un-seeded.

With meters of pipe, the river runs dry
The bringer of life, the river runs by
A hundred feet the river runs
Just sign the sheet.

Four hundred years, it’s not new news
For an annual appeal to change the views
For cleansing of souls, for washing and drinking
The monthly target, a well of souls sinking
From Chadwell Spring to New River Head
It’s not flowing enough for the dry river bed

The new river company, Water Aid
Continuous supply, the river stayed
Water flowed, pulling funds
Sediment money. The river runs.

Song Description

400 years ago, The New River was built to bring fresh water from Hertfordshire (near where I live) to Islington, London (near where I work) but only for those that could afford it. 400 years later, there are people that still need water to live but we still don’t seem to have learned. A look at this and some of the (non)solutions to solving this. Michael MacNeill

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