I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way I may be a wage slave on Monday But I am a free man on Sunday
I've been o'er the Snowdon, I've slept upon Crowden I've camped by the Wain Stones as well I've sunbaked on Kinder, been burnt to a cinder And many more things I can tell My rucksack has oft been my pillow The heather has oft been my bed And sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
The day was just ending as I was descending By Grindsbrook, just by Upper Tor When a voice cried, Eh you, in the way keepers do He'd the worst face that ever I saw The things that he said were unpleasant In the teeth of his fury I said Sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
He called me a louse and said, Think of the grouse Well I thought but I still couldn't see Why old Kinder Scout and the moors round about Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me He said, All this land is my master's At that I stood shaking my head No man has the right to all mountains Any more than the deep ocean bed
I once loved a maid, a spot-welder by trade She was fair as the rowan in bloom And the blue of her eye matched the June moorland sky And I wooed her from April to June On the day that we should have been married I went for a ramble instead For sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead
So I walk where I will over mountain and hill And I lie where the bracken is deep I belong to the mountains, the clear-running fountains Where the grey rocks rise rugged and steep I've seen the white hare in the gulley And the curlew fly high over head And sooner than part from the mountains I think I would rather be dead