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171
The Seagulls Still Follow on Freedom l
I. In Placentia Bay there sat on !.he shore
A young girl who mourned for her love who's no more;
The pride of his manhood is the price of the sea,
And the seagulls still follow on freedom.
2. She reached out her hand to an old man passed by.
And she lifted her head with a tear in her eye;
Said "sit and I'll tell you a tale of some woe,
While the seagulls still follow on freedom.
3. I come from Toronto up on the mainland,
And there's many's a thing here that I don't understand,
Like why are these young men still slaves to the sea,
While the seagulls still follow on freedom?"
4. lie said to this young maid as he held her small hand
That the sea and its fury are part of this land,
And them who can't take it had better nol stay
With the seagulls who follow on freedom.
5. Those men who quote figures and count the cause 10sl;
They see only the high seas and the lives it has cost.
They don't see the life as we know it to be
Like the seagulls who follow on freedom.
6. So they cheat us and they rob us and continue to say
"mat our only salvation is leaving me bay,
BUI I'll soon be ninety and there's one thing I know:
That the seagulls still follow on freedom.
IMUNFLA 87-159/CI0651; Ihis song was composed by Pat Byrne. Ron Hynes' song, Sonny's
Dream, is anolher telling evocalion or men's absence and women's loneliness; see Peler
Narvaez, M'I think I wrote a Folksong': Popularily and 'Sonny's Dream', M Fourth Congress or
the International Sociely ror Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), Bergen, Norway. June 20,
1990.