Manuscript

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VERSE 1
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D                          A                      G
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights down low
D                        A                    G
Silently sifting through papers sealed with a crown
D                      A                     G                D
Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more Dreadnoughts
              A                       G
The houses in Hackney are all falling down

D
                               A                            D
And my grandmother sits on the beach in the days before the war
Bb                     D      F                       G
Young girl writing her diary,    while time seems to pause
Bb                                                       D      F
Watching the waves as they come one by one to die on the shore
            Bb     A      D
Kissing the feeeeeeeeeeet of England.


G D G D

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VERSE 2
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       D                          A
Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
G                      D                             A                            G
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late, yet there's nothing to touch
        D                        A                         G
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
   D                         A                   G
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much

D
                                   A                             D
And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Bb               D      F                     G
Smiling a secret smile     as she goes to the door
        Bb                                                 D     F
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
                 Bb         A      D
And the sun sets gentlyyyyyyyyyyyy on England.


G D G D

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VERSE 3
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       D                 A                          G
Ah the day we decided to drive down to Worthing, it rained and rained
D                A                      G
Giving us only a minute to stand by the sea
    D                            A                             G
And crunching my way through the shingles, it seemed there was nothing changed
           D                    A                            G
Though the jetty was maybe more scarred that I'd known it to be

D
                          A                      D
And Mandi and I stood and stared at the overcast sky
      Bb                   D                         G
Where ten years ago we had stood, my Grandfather and I
        Bb                                                 D
And the waves still rushed in as they had the year that he died
       Bb                                                   D
And it seemed that my lifetime was shrunken and lost in the tide
                           Bb      A      D
As it rose and fell on the sideeeeeeeeeee of England


G D G D

D                          A                           F
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights