Trowbridge town, Trowbridge town
On the banks of the Biss
Shallow that dirty river
Like a streak of piss.
The county town, Trowbridge town
Where day is black as night
And winter comes in spring
With a bunch of aconites.
Trowbridge town, bent old town
A monkey for a bribe
To nail a blue cat son
To hang him till he died.
Trowbridge town, crooked town
Yes, it did for young poor Tom,
As the mill burnt in flames.
He slept a drunken song.
For the want of blood, they got it quick
But no one saw Tom there,
Least of all Read and Heath
In that blazing summer air.
In Trowbridge town.
The barley, fleece and crown
Respice, prospice, send us down.
In Salisbury sat the jury
That’s who they claimed to be
Ten bare minutes it took them
To find the young the boy guilty.
And if he knew more truth
Tom didn’t say a word,
But sat and lonely listened
And the world outside just heard.
Mr Garrow was his counsel
As thick as shipyard oak
To the gallows went a boy
His defence barely spoke.
The night before his death
Tom wrote his kith and kin
Sending love and hoping
The Lord would save his soul from sin.
But the good Lord’s judgement
Tends to favour those
Who suffer not from war and loss
And all poverty exposed.
So came the day a Trowbridge son
Was sent to the rope to die
On his nineteenth birthday
For someone else’s crime.
At the bleak and lonely side
Of a bleak and lonely road,
A body hanged, a body hung
And so the story’s told.
But they carried Tom across the plain
Back to Trowbridge town,
So you and I, the sons of others
Can lay our flowers down.
The barley, fleece and crown
Respice, prospice, send us down
The barley, fleece and crown
Mea culpa – send us down.
Lie on the chalk hills and gaze at the moon
Count the stars with a daisy
We’ll be all stars soon.
Like two lovers we’ll lie
Like two lovers, we’ll break down and cry.
Wiltshire boy, Wiltshire boy,
Wiltshire boy, it’s in every line you thought
It’s in every chalk path you walk
Wiltshire boy
It’s in every single battle you fought
Wiltshire boy
Wiltshire boy.
Trowbridge town, my home town
Or as close as I will get,
In there many cousins
That I have never met.
This old town, red brick town
Its soul as dark as lead,
Days built of ashes
Of the living and the dead.
By thick of night Trowbridge town
In rain stained streetlight red,
The lanes shiver low,
The thunder’s overhead.
In the streets of English towns
Old cries still you’ll hear
The groan of broken children
And the wind howls in your ears.
I left that place years ago
As they pulled the old ways down
But when I wake in a cold sweat sleep
That old town haunts me now.
The latest from NY’s David Nagler is a stirring chamber-folk record with rich instrumentation and vivid, evocative lyrics. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 7, 2022
A surprisingly tender and intimate concept record about long distance love from Cody Votolato of The Blood Brothers/Head Wound City. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 30, 2019
Songs of timeless beauty and power in the mold of Vashti Bunyan and Nick Drake from enigmatic Los Angeles artist Shannon Lay. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 4, 2017
Rundgren-esque rock with big hooks and a hint of the baroque, recommended for fans of Jon Brion and post-Kill Rock Stars Elliott Smith. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 20, 2024
