Songs: I Come From The Fens

notes / gigs / releases

I come from the fens, although you'd never know it
I've got a funny accent but I don't like to show it
My friends have got twelve fingers, my sister's got fifteen
I come from the fens, where everyone's like me

I come from the fens, where no-one has toboggans
The landscape is so flat and the gradients are long 'uns
We like to live not far above the level of the sea
I come from the fens, where everyone's like me

I come from the fens, where nothing obscures the sky
Hereward the Wake hid here, but no-one quite knows why
We like to keep our breeding cycle in the family
I come from the fens, where everyone's like me

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This is a song with a long long history, having started off as one of my songs on the uk-indie tape I Preferred Their Earlier Stuff tape and thus the first song of mine ever heard by Frankie Machine. According to my notes at the time it arrived in my head whilst walking down Fosse Road in Leicester one day and I had to RUN home to write it down, but I don't really remember that.

The finger-picking took ages to work out, but it's certainly had a lot of use since although as you can hear from the start of the version on Milk & Baubles I've never got it quite worked out. Like the other songs on the second half of that EP it was originally recorded during the sessions for Say It With Words but didn't do well enough in The Focus Group to make the final cut. I distinctly remember Mr Reverb being HORRIFIED by this when he found out, as it was one of his favourite songs - bless!