Lorry Songs

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
1

As an ageing folk singer I collect songs about UK lorry driving. (I still hesitate to call it trucking. In my day trucks ran on tracks.) I don’t mean the rich variety of American trucking country songs that all sound about the same. The songs I am interested in record life on the roads in the UK, as it was before the tacho revolution.

For example, one of mine from the 1980s goes:

THE DIESEL CALLS THE TUNE

Chorus
And the diesel calls the tune
And the tyres hum along
We are the heavy lorry men
Bringing you our song

If Wimpy call for Readymix or Grandma calls for coal
No matter who the customer, still the wagons roll
And forty tons of bulldozer with a blade sixteen foot wide
Is nothing to low-loader men. They’ll take it in their stride

Weight limits and lorry bans are springing up all round
For no-one wants us passing them with our diesel fumes and sound
But look around your living room and everything you see
From the carpet up to the ceiling was brought to you by me

Once we stopped at Dirty Dicks for wads and scalding tea
Or at the Jungle up on Shap for warmth and company
But now the caffs have all sold out to Little Chef and Co
Lorries are not welcome where once we’d often go.

Once it was an Atkinson, a Guy or AEC
An ERF or Foden, or Scammel that you’d see
But now we’re driving Scanias and MACs and Maggie-Ds
And MANs and Volvos and DAFs and Mercedes

We bring your food and clothing in our boxes tilts and flats
On our big low loaders go your JCBs and Cats
In our tanker trailers we put petrol, oil and tars
Tippers carry ballast and transporters carry cars

(Verse added in 1995)
Once we had the time to be the knights upon the road
Now they track us day and night, as we haul our loads
With limiters and tachos, and swipe cards they can see
Exactly how we drive and even if we stop to pee.

Chorus
And the diesel calls the tune
And the tyres hum along
We are the heavy lorry men
Bringing you our song

I have the couple of songs that Ewan McColl wrote back in the late 40s for his radio ballads programmes on BBC, but does anyone know any others? There was a good song about the Norfolk/Suffolk sugar beat campaign going around the clubs in the 70s. I’ve lost that one now.

I’d be grateful for any pointers, lyrics etc.

Cheers

Tone
canaldrifter

2

What about the best lorry song of the 70s " CONVOY GB " By Laurie Lingo & the Dipsticks, :grimacing: :smiley: :laughing: :grimacing:

3

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4

Thanks for that Jim! I had heard it before, but didn’t have the lyrics.

Here’s another one of mine, a bit of dry land shanty fantasy but never the less:

Diesel Teddy is me name,
Running Dodgy
Lorry Driving is me game
With ropes and sheets and dolly 'em down

I’ve hauled 'em heavy, I’ve hauled 'em light
Running dodgy
Through the day and half the night
Ropes and sheets and dolly 'em down

Down to Cornwall i did go
(Tie line)
Hauling salt to clear the snow
(Tie line etc)

Then at Penryn I loaded tin
Hauled it up to Kings Lynn

At Harwich Quay I loaded tea
Hauled it up to Dundee

At Dunfermline I loaded bins
Returning them to Brummigem

At Selly Oak I loaded coke
Hauled it down to Basingstoke

At Sunningdale I loaded ale
Hauled it across to Ebbw Vale

At Pontypool I loaded wool
Hauled it up to Liverpool

Across from Cork I loaded pork
Hauled it over the hills to York

At Halifax I loaded sacks
I was dropping 'em at Nottingham

Then empty on the motorway
I made for home and two weeks pay

So don’t resent me passing through
For all I haul… I haul for you

and all of Britain’s industry
Would come to naught if it weren’t for me…
Ropes and sheets and dolly 'em down

An imaginative song in the memory of Teddy Coggins, who was a retiring (in age but not verbally) Geordie driver. I was stuck with him on the A69 at Brampton in heavy snow for three nights on my birthday week in about 1976, and got the whole history, most of it fictitious, of his driving exploits as a tramper over and over again, bless 'im.

Tone

5

How about Mark Knopfler’s Border reiver ?

Southern bound from Glasgow town, she’s shining in the sun
My Scotstoun lassie, on the border run
We’re whistling down the hillsides and tearing up the climbs
I’m just a thiever, stealing time
In the Border Reiver.

Three hundred thousand on the clock and plenty more to go
Crash, box and lever she needs the heel and toe
Shes not too cold in winter but she cooks me in the heat
I’m a six foot driver but you can adjust the seat
in the Border Reiver

Sure as the sunrise, that’s what they say about the Albion
Sure as the sunrise, that’s what they say about the Albion
She’s an Albion, she’s an Albion

The ministry don’t worry me my paperwork’s alright
They can’t touch me, I got my sleep last night
Its knocking out a living wage in nineteen sixty nine
I’m just a thiever, stealing time
In the Border reiver.

Sure as the sunrise, that’s what they say about the Albion
Sure as the sunrise, that’s what they say about the Albion
She’s an Albion, she’s an Albion

6

Last year I attended the funeral of one of my old drivers(Jim Varney) who had worked for Bewick Transport for about 25 years.In the little chapel at the cemetery the background music was Roger Miller singing “King of the Road” and I’m sure that everyone who knew the late Jim would agree that the song was “spot on” for the occaision and the man.Bewick.

7

Trev_H:
How about Mark Knopfler’s Border reiver ?

Nope. I’ve missed that one. What album is it on?

Tone