Interpret:

Mark Knopfler

Album:

Privateering

Pennies from heaven
Don’t make me laugh
Here all you’ll get 
Is the pattering rain
Or yon two crows up over the hill
Looking for winterkill
Always at your boots
The mud behind the byre 
With its clammy hold 
Would mock you up a grave 
Here in the mire of a wrecked sheepfold


And all you’ll bring to this 
Is muscle and grit
Persistence, that’s just about it
What made you think
There’d be a living in sheep?
Eat, work, eat, work and sleep


Duck under the eaves 
Of the bothy
To sit here, caged by rain 
Somewhere to go conjure
A next move
When I have to think again
The dog lifts his gaze to plead
Believes the wizard has a magic stick
Leans his weight into my tweed
I give an unholy hand to lick


I take a swig of sheep dip 
From my flask
And once again I ask
What made you think
There’d be a living in sheep?
Eat, work, eat, work and sleep


They were at this game 
Two hundred years ago
Had thirty ways 
Of dying young, poor souls
Laid to rest in their soggy rows
Rain on their holy books
Blood and whisky 
On the tongue
And no-one watching over anyone
No-one left but your stubborn one
And the crows and rooks


Ah, the dying young 
Well I’m not done
You watch me and I’ll watch thee 
I can still work for two men
And drink for three


And I raise my flask 
To the clearing skies
To you, sweepers 
You carrion spies
To scavenge and survive
If you can do it so can I