Fairport Convention - John's Reflection On His Boyhood... lyrics

Little did I think when the judge first spoke Those awful words to me That I would feel again the cold winds blow And a heart would beat in 'Babbacombe' Lee I was born to lead a life of sorrow (I've seen friends hang their heads in shame) Growing tired and weary of the morrow Tortured by my terrible name When I was fifteen, my father called to me Saying "Now you are a man and all men work There's a lady and they say her name's Miss Keyes Her pony's very old, it needs a nurse" For eighteen months I worked for her about The Glen (She was like a mother to me) But time goes slowly when you're thinking wishfully (Of all the other places to be) There were boats drifting in the harbour There were sailors talking in the town That's the life for a boy who wants to wander For a man who doesn't want to settle down ... I was sixteen now and full of life, life was full of things to see Grown up in my little town and only seen Torquay So it's off I went to Newton Abbot to get myself the deeds to sign My father took them and tore them up, saying "That's no life for a boy of mine" "John, my son, don't join the Navy, there's no good in it, I know Plant your seeds on solid ground and watch your harvest grow John, my son, don't join the Navy, that's clay that's underneath your skin John, my son, don't join the Navy, don't go leaving your kith and kin" A boy must breathe and search some hearts or call himself a failure So I would see some foreign shores and I would be a sailor So I went off to my mother for a week or more and wiled and wheeled and won my way Father put the pen to paper in the fields at lunch the very next day