Ribbon Road lyrics

Easy Pickings

The easy pickings are the working class, and now and then a new under-class of disenfranchised people who struggle to survive under the brutal rule of austerity. Like Ken Loach, I am angry at the terrible treatment of the disadvantaged, our young people, old people - anyone who ‘isn't quite up to the mark'. Seeing and being in the Numbered Streets in Horden brings it home just what is really happening all over this country, and I just had to say something.

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Easy Pickings

Here they come again
Dirty politicians
Cannot wash it off their hands
Cannot get it dead and buried
Picking at the bones
Stealing all our money
When they think nobody's home
Don't they love the easy pickings

Here they come again
Houses empty shuttered up
Just like the Accent men
They know when their bread is buttered
They weren't born to care
Never tried or shared their winnings
Never stayed around just legged it
Don't they love the easy pickings

Chorus
Watch these trees that keep on bending
Shifting sand, it's never ending

Here they come again
With their private educators
Horrid bully yes-men
With their canes and caps and blazers
Breaking all the rules
Stealing all the public land
Driving on till we're all sickened
Don't they love the easy pickings

Here they come again
Telling us we're scroungers, wasters
Heartless to the end
Slap their sanctions on and hate us
They don't want to know
Driving us below the footfall
Don't they love their easy pickings
They don't even know their football

Chorus
Watch these trees that keep on bending
Shifting sand, it's never ending

Here they come again
They won't keep us safe at nights
Neglected on the edge
They don't know their wrong from right
They've left us here for dead
They just look the other way
Cut us up and close us down
Don't they love the easy pickings
v Here they come again
There's nothing good around the corner
They don't feel the pain
They refuse us law and order
Stretching the divide
Opening up a can of worms
Dumb us down with all their lying
Don't they love the easy pickings

Chorus
Watch these trees that keep on bending
Shifting sand, it's never ending
Watch these trees that keep on bending
Shifting sand, it's never ending
Here they come again

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"I took the disc home and put it on the CD player and I've got to tell you something. I don't think I can remember a time when I was so completely engrossed, impressed, entranced, I do believe that this song is very special indeed - from the CD Roadside Dreams by Ribbon Road, the beautiful voice of Brenda Heslop - I just think this is simply amazing."

Mike Harding

"Songwriter Brenda Heslop has a secret, and she will whisper it in your ear: but a shocking secret, and its effect on you is much greater than you expect from a whisper. True, Brenda's secrets are in song, but the effect of her quiet vocals and harmonies with husband Geoff whacks you in the lughole and makes you pay attention."

The Living Tradition

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