| It was last Monday morning
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| Oh as I have heard them say
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| Our orders, they came this afternoon
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| We’re bound to march away
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| Chorus (after each verse):
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| For the Lancashire lads have gone abroad
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| Whatever shall we do?
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| They’re leaving many’s a pretty fair maid
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| To cry, «What shall I do?»
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| Said the mother to the daughter
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| «What makes you talk so strange?
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| That you want to marry a soldier lad
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| And the whole wide world to range
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| For the soldiers, they are ramblin' boys
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| They have but little pay
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| Can they maintain a wife and child
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| On fifteen pence day?"
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| Said the father to the daughter
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| «I'll have you close confined
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| You’ll never marry a soldier lad
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| He’ll be no son of mine»
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| «Oh if you confine me seven long years
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| And after set me free
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| I’ll go and I’ll follow m' soldier lad
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| When I gain my liberty
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| For my true love’s dressed in scarlet
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| And turned up with the blue
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| And every place that he goes in
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| My sweetheart is true"
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| Now we’ve gotten sweethearts enough, brave boys
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| Girls to please our minds
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| But we’ll never forget sweet Manchester
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| And the girls we left behind |