Sweet Arcadia Songtext
von Saint Etienne

The trains took us away from the smoke, from Fenchurch Street
Through Limehouse, West Ham, Barking, and over the fields
To Laindon, Dunton, Pitsea, Benfleet
To Southend-on-Sea
39 miles and 40 chains over the fields, through the thick clay

We took over the neglected meadow,
The untidy farmyard, and overgrown hedgerow
Smallholdings--homemade, handmade
Makeshift towns, a land for the people, a home of your own
Sweet Arcadia


Tumbledown shacks and tumbledown cliffs
A refuge from the rent book
We built our own shops,
We built our own cinemas, we named our own houses:
The Haven, Cozy Nook, Landsbury, Beerer John, Tellsville, Bon Ami

And when the waters the breached the seawalls, we moved back inland
Into Surrey: Box Hill, Normandy, Selsdon Vale
Into Kent: Cliffsend, Seasalter, Dungeness
Into Sussex: Jurys Gap, Pett Level, Peacehaven
Sweet Albion, makeshift, make do and mend
We built mock-Tudor sheds and houses from train carriages
From asbestos and corrugated iron
We took your land, and we made it our land
Sweet Arcadia

Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia


Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia
Ohh, oh, Sweet Arcadia