Karaoké Bee's Wing The Whistlin' Donkeys

I was eighteen when I came to town

They called it the Summer of Love

They were bornin' babies burnin' flags and the hawks against the doves

I took a job in the steamie way down on Cauldrum Street

And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was workin' next to me

Brown hair zig-zagged around her face and a look of half-surprise

Like a fox caught in the headlights

There was animal in her eyes

She said to me

Oh can't you see

I'm not the factory kind

And if you don't take me out of here

I'll lose my mind

She was a rare thing

As fine as a bee's wing

So fine a breath of wind might blow her away

She was a lost child

She was runnin' wild

She said So long as there's no price on love I'll stay

You wouldn't want me any other way

We busked around the market towns

Fruit pickin' down in Kent

And we could tinker pots and pans and knives wherever we went

And I said to her we'll settle down and get a few acres dug

With a fire burnin' in the hearth and babies on the rug

She said Oh man

You foolish man that surely sounds like hell

You might be lord of half the world you'll not own me as well

She was a rare thing

As fine as a bee's wing

So fine a breath of wind might blow her away

She was a lost child

She was runnin' wild

She said So long as there's no price on love I'll stay

You wouldn't want me any other way

We where campin' down the Gower one time and the work was mighty good

She wouldn't wait for the harvest

I thought we should

We where drinkin' more in those days

Our tempers reached a pitch

Like a fool I let her on her way when she took the ramblin' itch

And the last I heard she's livin' rough back on the Derby beat

And a bottle of White Horse in her pocket

A wolfhound at her feet

And they say that she got married once to a man called Romany Brown

But even a gypsy caravan was too much like settlin' down

Tthey say her rose is faded with weather and hard booze

Maybe that's the price you pay for the chain that you refuse

She was a rare thing

As fine as a bee's wing

I miss her more than ever words can say

If I could just taste all of her wildness now

If I could hold her in my arms today

I wouldn't want her any other way