I Don't Want To Die Here

The first time I left home I didn’t make it on my own,
With the money running out I went reaching for the phone,
Digging holes and building walls in the dark and in the rain,
When I set off for the second time I didn’t think that I’d be here again

Oh it seems like a lifetime 
Its still so clear
I loaned this land some children
But I don’t want to die here

I reckon Salmon can recall the underwater sound,
Of the currents of creation shifting gravel in their hatching grounds,
With their noses pointed upstream as they dream of the ocean waves,
They’re fearless and they’re defenceless as they leave their cradles and their graves.

This place where you were born, old faces on its stones, the inside of your bones
are inscribed with the lyrics of the official song and one day you’ll be master,
No one alive today remembers when this tradition first began 
but I have got a pal whose grandad was born forty years before it started.

The slick cobblestones reflecting seventies festoons,
A drunken county rallies round ideas like sad balloons.
The Salmon’s not content to stay back bringing up the rear,
He’s got to move like silver lightning and I don’t want to fucking die here.