England Sleeps

from How We Fade by The Smivets

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about

After many decades of at best indifference and sometimes active dislike of my own country, I finally realised that it's quite a nice place really and I'm actually quite proud of it nowadays.

The first verse is based on true events - as a young lad I often hitchhiked around the country and one fine morning I was given a lift by a lovely young girl in a smart convertible (a classic British Triumph Herald).
Nothing "happened" - we just chatted pleasantly for an hour or so's drive through the rolling countryside until she dropped me off and we went our separate ways.
The event has stuck with me all these years as a sort of picture of Englishness.

The pastoral birdsong passages were not initially in the plan, but when I'd recorded the acoustic guitar parts I realised that I had too much background noise. Not good background noise but computer fans, house creakings and other stuff you get from not using a properly treated room. But I liked the recording so needed a way to keep it by getting rid of the noise. I tried noise gates and other tricks but the results were dreadful. So one night the answer came in a dream, and the next morning at 5am I woke up and just stuck a microphone out the bedroom window. It captured a beautiful dawn chorus, with a little distant traffic noise in the background. There's even an owl. Perfect!

lyrics

A Triumph Herald
Soft top down
Crests the rise
On the A361
The boy's not optimistic
That this one'll pick up hitchhikers
But she stops
And says come on

And England sleeps

Well you can walk for miles
And feel like you haven't gone anywhere
You can sit stock still
And feel like you've seen the world
Well I've travelled the earth
Flown my banner in a hundred countries
But I always seem to fall back
To the place where it first unfurled

Where England sleeps
Perchance to dream
The finest place on earth
So it might seem
England sleeps
But have no fear
I'm not some swivel-eyed zealot
I just quite like it here
Where England sleeps

Is England sleeping
In Merlin's hidden cave
With a hundred of King Arthur's finest
Waiting to ride out and save the day?
Well I heard that rumour
But I know that it can't be
Because I know where she is sleeping
And it's right here
It's right here, deep down within me

Well you can talk about the Beatles
And Tim Berners-Lee
Talk about William Shakespear
Giants of their day
But if you walk the green back lanes
And the ordinary streets
You'll see a thousand years of footprints
That guided their way

To where England sleeps
Perchance to dream
The finest place on earth
So it might seem
England sleeps
But have no fear
I'm not some swivel-eyed zealot
I just quite like it here
Where England sleeps

credits

from How We Fade, released September 30, 2023

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The Smivets Uttoxeter, UK

The Smivets are Steve Smith, a songwriter, guitarist, singer and musical dabbler from Staffordshire, UK.
Leaning heavily towards the music of the 70s, there's a cavalier disregard for any rules of genre. One minute it might be hard rock, the next pop, or prog-rock or punk or anything, but all with depth - they'll take your heart if you let them.
Press play - you never know what you'll get. ... more

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