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Billy Marshall

from Linen by Carol Fieldhouse

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Billy Marshall. The apparently true story of the irrepressible ‘king of gypsies’ from Galloway

lyrics

Billy Marshall by Carol Fieldhouse

Billy was born on Galloway ground
In sixteen seventy two
A gypsy boy who’d wear a crown
Until the Ferryman’s pay was due

Billy would dance any girl that he could
Two hands through the grey wedding stone
Cleeking and swinging and footing a reel
Spinning his new bride home

King of the Gypsy Tinklers
High in his cave he will be
King of the Gypsy Tinklers
Roaming and living free

He slipped through the grip of his soldiering days
Skipped from a life on the sea
Turned his hand to the smuggle and steal
Stood for the poor of Kirkcudbrigh
t
Billy Marshall was King of the Gypsies they say
Seventeen wives through his bed
Six score years of black Galloway nights
It was never by laws he was lead

King of the Gypsy Tinklers
High in his cave he will be
King of the Gypsy Tinklers
Roaming and living free

In seventeen ninety two, at close of the day
Billy Marshall’s time it had come
‘No more King of the gypsies’, they say
As his last adventure begun

On his grave in the churchyard the pennies still lie
There’s a fare that he still has to pay
Two hundred years and Billy still waits
For his soul to be carried away

King of the Gypsy Tinklers
High in his cave he will be
King of the Gypsy Tinklers
Roaming and living free

credits

from Linen, released September 29, 2016

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Carol Fieldhouse Derbyshire Dales District, UK

After years rooted in Folk and Early Music, I discovered my musical homeland as a songwriter in 2008. My debut album linen, produced by Boo Hewerdine and recorded by engineer Chris Pepper, was Celtic Music Radio’s Album of the Week in 2016.

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