This is the story of the Liberty of Norton Folgate
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Old Jack Norris, ¡®The Musical Shrimp¡¯
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And the cadging ramble
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A little bit of this
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Would you like a bit of that?
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But in weather like this
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You should wear a coat, a nice warm hat
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A needle and thread
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The hand stitches of time
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Battling Lavinski versus Jackie Burke
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Bobbing and weaving an invisible line
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So step for step and both light on our feet
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We¡¯ll travel many a long, dim, silent street
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Would you like a bit of this
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Or a little bit of that missus
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A little bit of what you like does you no harm
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You know that
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The perpetual steady echo of the passing beat
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A continual dark river of people
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In their transience and in its permanence
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But when the streetlamp fills the gutter with gold
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So many priceless items bought and sold
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So step for step and both light on our feet
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We¡¯ll travel many a long, dim, silent street - together
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Once round Arnold Circus
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Up through Petticoat Lane
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Past The Well of Shadows
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And once back round again
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Arm in arm with an abstracted air, to where
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The people stared at the upstairs windows
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Because we are living like kings
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And these days will last forever
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Cos sailors from Africa, China and the Archipelago of Malay
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Jump ship ragged and penniless into Shadwell¡¯s Tiger Bay
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The Welsh and Irish Wagtails ? mothers of midnight
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The music hall carousal is spilling out into bonfire light
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Sending half crazed shadows, giants
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Dancing up the brick wall
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Of Mr. Truman¡¯s beer factory
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Waving bottles ten feet tall
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Whether one calls it Spitalfields, Whitechapel,
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Tower Hamlets or Bangle Town
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We¡¯re all dancing in the moonlight
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We¡¯re all on borrowed ground
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Oh I¡¯m just walking down to
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I¡¯m just floating down through
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Won¡¯t you come with me?
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To the Liberty of Norton Folgate
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But wait, what¡¯s that
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Dan Leno and a Lime house Gollum
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Purposefully walking nowhere
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Oh I¡¯m happy just floating about (have a banana)
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On a Sunday afternoon
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The stall holders all call and shout (to no-one in particular)
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Avoiding people you know
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You¡¯re just basking in your own company
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The Technicolor worlds going by
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But you¡¯re the lead in your own movie
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Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate
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Walking wild and free
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In your second hand coat
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Happy just to float
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In this little taste of liberty
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A part of everything you see
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There coming left or right
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Trying to flog you stuff you don¡¯t need or want
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And a smiling chap takes your hand and drags you
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In his uncles restaurant (here, here, here, here)
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There¡¯s a Chinese man trying hard to flog you moody DVDs
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You know you¡¯ve seen the film, its black and white, it¡¯s got no sound
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And a man¡¯s head pops up and down right across you wide screen TV
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Only a fiver (how much?)
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Alright two for eight quid
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(¡®Ere y¡¯ar, look look, I¡¯m giving it away)
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Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate
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Walking wild and free
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In your second hand coat
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Happy just to float
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In this little piece of liberty
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You¡¯re a part of everything you see
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Cos it¡¯s steady old fellows, pickpockets, dandies, extortioners and night wanderers
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The feeble, the ghastly upon whom death had placed a very sure hand
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Some in shreds and patches, reeling inarticulate full of noisy and inordinate vivacity
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Which jars discordantly upon the ear and give an aching sensation to both pair of eyeballs
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(noisy and inordinate vivacity)
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In the beginning I¡¯d the fear of the immigrant
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In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant
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He¡¯s made his way down to the dark riverside
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In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant
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In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant
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He made his home there by the dark riverside
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He made his home there down by the riverside
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They made their homes there down by the riverside
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The city sprang from the dark river Thames
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They made their home there down by the riverside
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They made their homes there down by the riverside
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The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames
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I say it again
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Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate
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Walking wild and free
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And in your second hand coat
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Happy just to float
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In |