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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The CD of The Four Fathers' second album comes with a full colour 8-page booklet by drummer Brendan Horstead featuring all the lyrics.

    Includes unlimited streaming of How Much Is A Life Worth? via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

This is a song Andy wrote in 1986, after moving to Brixton, about the end of an affair, set in the twilight world of Thatcher’s Britain.

lyrics

River Run Dry (Andy Worthington)

When winter froze up the heart of the city
Oh my love sailed away for the sun
I sat alone in the shuttered museum
I sat alone and I polished my gun

And in the shrine I built for her memory
I surrounded her portrait with trophies of war
But every arrow of love shot in hatred
Kept turning forever to nevermore

Chorus

Oh how can it be so monotonous?
How can the river run dry?
But trying too hard to hold on to someone
Leaves nothing but lies in your eyes

I met her down where the refugees wander
Hot with anger and cold with ennui
Where past and future are ancient delusions
And life is an echo eternally brief

Without a word to express our misgivings
We take our time and we put it to bed
But the morning after what started so harmless
Winds up speechless and sick in the head

Chorus (repeat)

The midnight bells toll another new daytime
The drunken sailors are far from the sea
Ducking down alleyways far from the jailers
Who jangle their handcuffs and forget all their dreams

Me I sit at my window
Calm inside the cascading rain
That falls like a cool benediction
Smoothing away the furrows of friction
Gently laughing at contradiction
Till the river flows again

Line-up:

Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar)
Richard Clare (electric guitar, backing vocals)
Bren Horstead (drums and percussion)
Andrew Fifield (flute and harmonica)
Louis Sills-Clare (bass)

credits

from How Much Is A Life Worth?, released November 27, 2017
Written by Andy Worthington.
Recorded at Perry Vale Studios with Pat Collier, September 2016.

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The Four Fathers London, UK

Militant, melodic rock & roots reggae band, based in SE London, mostly playing original protest music. Journalist and activist Andy Worthington (lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar), Richard Clare (electric guitar, vocals), Bren Horstead (drums, percussion), Andrew Fifield (flute, harmonica), Paul Rooke (bass). ... more

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