Cottagers Reply

C F C F

[Verse 1]
     C                         F
Five hundred thousand English pounds
     F                             C
For this old house and a piece of ground,
     C                          F
You and your wife have always planned
    F                       C
To settle down in Cotswold land.


[Chorus]
             G                           Am
Well you’d best come in, you’d best sit down
       G                            C
It’s such a long drive from London town
           C                          F
Would you like some tea now while I tell?
      F                    C
The reasons why I will not sell.


[Verse 2]
      C                               F
This stone built house that you call nice
     F                       C
Was gained at far too high a price,
     C                F
For me to gaily sign away
       F                          C
What others toiled for night and day.

       G                        Am
They hammered bluestone by the yard
          G                               C
And they found the rent when times where hard,
          C                          F
And they lived and died beneath the sun
  F                          C
Tending the fields you gaze upon.


[Verse 3]
      C                           F
Well they’re all gone, but as for me
     F                       C
The wild hare still runs as free,
        C                       F
And at dusk the badger travels still
   F                       C
Ancestral highways on the hill.

         G                Am
I am as Cotswold bred as these
    G                             C
And I still need these field and trees,
       C                          F
And I need the soil that bore my race
     F                              C
And holds their bones beneath this place.


[Verse 4]
  C                        F
Enough for me this cot of stone,
    F                       C
a might of land to call my own
   C                             F
A friend to drink with, wife to smile
     F                       C
and Cotswold country by the mile

    G                         Am
So take your cup and drain it down
     G                          C
you would be peasants from the town
    C                      F
Go on your journey let me bide
   F                      C
content in my own countryside


[Verse 5]
     G                           Am
You say you’ll pay five hundred pounds
      G                            Am
For this old house and a piece of land,
       C                          F
Well London’s about four hours for me
            F                      C
But in your 4 x 4 you’ll do it in three.