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Company Policy
[Martin Carthy]
Martin Carthy sang his own song Company Policy on his 1988 album Right of Passage; it was re-released in 1993 on Rigs of the Time: The Best of Martin Carthy and on the Topic anthology The Folk Collection. A BBC live recording from July 1987 was published on The Kershaw Sessions and reissued in 2001 on the anthology The Carthy Chronicles. Martin Carthy commented in the The Kershaw Sessions sleeve notes:
The wounds sustained in the Falkland War were mainly burns because men were left off shore in boats and landing crafts, waiting for the invasion. They were sitting targets for such Exocet missiles as the Argentinas could lay their hands on. The boats were of super-lightweight construction so they could carry all the electronic hardware that they needed.
Maggie Holland recorded Company Policy for her 1992 album Down to the Bone. She sang it (and her own Perfumes of Arabia) live in Antwerp, Belgium, at Folk in 't Stad on 30 March 2012:
Lyrics
Right of Passage version | The Kershaw Sessions version |
---|---|
I saw her by the showroom window, |
I saw her by the showroom window, |
There were twenty screens in the showroom window, |
There were twenty screens in the showroom window, |
They called him Jack, they called him John, | |
Mama told me, don't you wed a soldier |
Mama told me, don't you wed a soldier |
Every night I dreamed that I saw him, |
Every night I dreamed that I saw him, |
For they called him Jack, they called him John, | |
But it was not death that bawled in the alley |
But it was not death that bawled in the alley |
But the bomb bounding down on the alley, |
But the bomb bounding down the alley, |
Oh, sweet and soothing showers, |
Oh, sweet and soothing showers, |
For it was all a case of saving face |
It was all a case of saving face |
Eighteen hundred landless tenants, |
Eighteen hundred landless tenants, |
In my dream I stand at Bluff, |
In my dream I stand at Bluff, |
Ring-a-ring-a city roses, |
Ring-a-ring-a city roses, |
Acknowledgements
Garry Gillard thanks, for transcriptions and notes, Wally Macnow, Susanne Kalweit, and the other mudcatters at The Mudcat Café, and Wolfgang Hell.