Internal Exile lyrics

I saw a blue umbrella in Princes Street Gardens

Heading out west for the Lothian Road

An Evening News stuffed deep in his pocket

Wrapped up in his problems to keep away the cold

Grierson's spirit haunts the dockyards

Where the only men working are on

Documentary crews

Shooting film as the lines get longer

As the seams run out, as the oil runs dry

[Chorus]

Hey there laddie, Internal Exile!

When will you realise we've got to let go?

Hey there lassie, Internal Exile!

When will you realise we've got to let go?

Starlings wheeling round Georgian spires

And the fires of Grangemouth burn the skies

A lion sleeps in a tenement close

In a country that's tired and deaf to his roar

[Chorus]

They bury a wasteland deep in the wilderness

Poison the soil and reap the harvest

Of blind indifference, greed and apathy

Sowed way back in our history

The fish are few the harbours empty

The keels now rot on our oil slicked shores

The sheep are gone, the farms deserted

We're out of sight and we're out of mind

[Chorus]

Like our fathers before us

We've eyes for America

Dream of a new life on foreign shores

But wherever we go, we'll always know

That the land we stand on, is never our own

[Chorus]