Saint Etienne - Sweet Arcadia lyrics

The trains took us away from the smoke
From Fenchurch Street
Through Limehouse, West Ham, Barking
And over the fields
To Laindon, Dunton, Pit'sea, Benfleet
To Southend-on-Sea
39 miles and 40 chains over the fields
Through the thick clay

We took over the neglected
Meadow, the untidy farmyard
And overgrown hedgerow
Smallholdings -homemade, handmade
Makeshift towns, a land for the people
A home of your own sweet Arcadia

Tumbledown shacks and tumbledown cliffs
A refuge from the rent book
We built our own shops, we
Built our own cinemas
We named our own houses:
The Haven, Cozy Nook, Landsbury
Beerer John, Tellsville, bon Ami

And when the waters the
Breached the seawalls, we moved back inland
Into Surrey: Box Hill, Normandy, Selsdon Vale
Into Kent: Cliffsend, Seasalter, Dungeness
Into Sussex: Jurys Gap, Pett Level
Peacehaven
Sweet Albion, makeshift, make do and mend
We built mock Tudor sheds and
Houses from train carriages
From asbestos and corrugated iron
We took your land, and we made it our land
Sweet Arcadia

Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia

Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia