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Original Song: Banks of the Ugee

2025-11-11T14:14:53.213Z

ImageToday I was thinking of the time I was booking bands at the Iron Horse in Northampton.  In 1994, I booked a band from Scotland called the Old Blind Dogs.  My band Woodkerne opened for them.  Their music still rings in my mind.  Here's a song that reminds me of them.
#OldBlindDogs #Woodkerne #IronHorse

https://soundcloud.com/sweetsongsproject/banks-of-the-ugee
 

Verse 1

When I was a-walking by the banks of the Ugee,

Come my dear friends and a story I'll relate,

I spied a dear comrade all dressed in white flannel,

Dressed in white flannel and cruel was his fate.

Chorus

Had he been a soldier, had he been a sailor,

Had he been a hero in battle array,

But he was a poor man, a poor man of sorrow,

And the white flannel shroud was the end of his day.

Verse 2

The cold wind was blowing, the river was rising,

The moon on the water threw silver and grey,

I knelt by his body and whispered a prayer,

For the soul of my comrade who'd drifted away.

Chorus

Had he been a soldier…

Verse 3

Now the Ugee keeps rolling, the years keep on turning,

But the notes of his fiddle still ring in my ear,

In the green room at Iron Horse, the laughter, the music,

Old Blind Dogs and Woodkerne - the night crystal clear.

Final Chorus

We were never soldiers, we were never sailors,

But we carried the songs through the cold and the rain,

And the white flannel memory still walks by the Ugee,

Till we meet on the banks of the river again.


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