Billy

Billy came far from the plains
Where the bank took his father’s house and farm
And closed the factory

He left his girl and his family
To search for work somewhere else
He was just seventeen

When he came into the town
He got nothing than the clothes that he wore
And his dream

One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll buy back Daddy’s land
One day I’ll be back again
And bring Mary a wedding band
And we’ll live on our own land

He took a job in a run down bar
Where he washed the dishes and took out the trash
For a starvation wage

He lived in a skid row of the town
In a small room in a tumble-down house
He wrote letters to his Mary Cage

One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll buy back Daddy’s land
One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll bring you a wedding band
And we’ll live on our own land

One night after a hard day of work
He took out the waste to the litter bins
Behind the house

There he found a shot down man
With blood and brain instead of a face
There was no one around

There was a wallet still filled with notes
And when he heard the sirens he ran away
With all the money he found

That night he left that town
Took a night train to the north
Now he called himself Mister Brown

One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll buy back Daddy’s land
One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll take her by the hand
And we’ll live on our own land

He took the money and he took his chance
Bought himself into a moneyed corporation
A ruthless company

It was either do or die
He never thought about whose land he took
Down and dirty he closed factories

He learnt how to push his luck
He sailed close to the wind and drove a hard bargain
But he still dreamed

One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll buy back Daddy’s land
One day I’ll be back again
And I’ll bring her a wedding band
And we’ll live on our own land

After eight years he came home
With pockets full of money and a hard outer shell
He tried to come up to his dream

His parents died some years ago
His father’s land became an industrial park
Mary had started her own family

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