Текст песни: The Joy of Living + перевод

Farewell you northern hills, you mountains all goodbye

Moorland and stony ridges, crags and peaks goodbye

Glyder Fach farewell, Cul Beag, Scafell, cloud-bearing

Suilven

Sun warmed rock and the cold of Bleaklow’s frozen sea

The snow and the wind and the rain of hills and

Mountains

Days in the sun and the tempered wind and the air like

Wine

And you drink and you drink till you’re drunk

On the joy of living

Farewell to you my love, my time is almost done

Lie in my arms once more until the darkness comes

You filled all my days, held the night at bay, dearest

Companion

Years pass by and they’re gone with the speed of birds

In flight

Our life like the verse of a song heard in the

Mountains

Give me your hand then love and join your voice with

Mine

We’ll sing of the hurt and pain

And the joy of living

Farewell to you my chicks, soon you must fly alone

Flesh of my flesh, my future life, bone of my bone

May your wings be strong, may your days be long, safe

Be your journey

Each of you bears inside of you the gift of love

May it bring you light and warmth and the pleasure of

Giving

Eagerly savour each new day and the taste of it’s mouth

Never lose sight of the thrill

And the joy of living

Take me to some high place of heather, rock and ling

Scatter my dust and ashes, feed me to the wind

So that I will be part of all you see, the air you are

Breathing

I’ll be part of the curlew’s cry and the soaring hawk

The blue milkwort and the sundew hung with diamonds

I’ll be riding the gentle wind that blows through your

Hair

Reminding you how we shared

In the joy of living

Mountain references: Glyder Fach is in Snowdonia, North

Wales; Cul Beag and Suilven are in Wester Ross in

Scotland; Scafell in the English Lake District;

Bleaklow in the Derbyshire Peak District (near Kinder).

Ling is a variety of heather, milkwort and sundew also

Grow on such mountainous areas.

MacColl said about the song in a book of poetry (1989):

The last time I climbed Suilven, or to be more precise,

Failed to climb it, was in my seventy-second year. I

Was with my wife and fourteen-year-old daughter Kitty.

«You go ahead,» I told them, «I'll meet you at the

Top.» But 'the flesh is bruckle, the fiend is slee',

And I hadn’t gone more than half the distance when my

Legs refused to carry me further. My body had given me

Plenty of warnings over the last seven or eight years

But this was the final notice. My mountain days were

Over. I sat down on a rock feeling utterly desolate.

The feeling lasted for several days and then my grief

And feeling of loss gave way to nostalgia and I wrote

The Joy of Living. In an odd kind of way it helped me

To come to terms with my old age. (Ewan MacColl in

Bell, Poetry 104)

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