Every generation finds - music that will blow their minds
And defines their journey down through time
Mine was 1950’s days - just before the Beatles craze
When I heard the song ‘Rock Island Line’
Fate had chosen for its plan - jazz-man Lonnie Donegan
Took us on a magic carpet ride
Folk & blues played fast & raw - Lonnie’s voice a high-pitched saw
Skiffle music came in like the tide
Chorus
Lonnie, Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie, Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie changed the course of peoples lives
Midnight Special - Coolie Dam - Pick a Bale of Cotton man
Even if your home town was St. Ives
Lonnie played with razzmatazz - strummed his guitar with pizzazz
Singing like a tiger poised to spring
He was cool when he was hot - we all felt like we’d been shot
When we heard that King of Skiffle sing
3 chords were the swords of fate - hoards of kids would imitate
Music revolution of a kind
Thrashing anything thing we’d got - washboard or a chamber pot
Emptied first to show you were refined
Chorus
Music was democratised - Lonnie should be canonised
For the way he changed those teenage lives
Helen launched a thousand ships - skiffle bands ate fish ‘n’ chips
After gigs in dirty dingy dives
Skiffle came and skiffle went - Lonnie he was Heaven sent
Music owes a lot to Lonnie D
Rock was waiting in the wings - kids went on to other things
But he set a generation free
Chorus
Donegan Quotations[edit]
I'm trying to sing acceptable folk music. I want to widen the audience beyond the artsy-craftsy crowd and the pseudo intellectuals–but without distorting the music itself. NME – June 1956[14]
"In Britain, we were separated from our folk music tradition centuries ago and were imbued with the idea that music was for the upper classes. You had to be very clever to play music. When I came along with the old three chords, people began to think that if I could do it, so could they. It was the reintroduction of the folk music bridge which did that." – Interview, 2002.
