HYMN FROM A VILLAGE

First released : 1985

Hymn From A Village was featured along with Stutter on the 1982 demo circulated to record companies and was first aired to a mass audience in a 1983 Peel Session before heading up the James II EP in 1985.  Its lyrics take a swipe at the weak lyrical content of his contemporaries.

It was also the track that convinced Larry that his guitar students did have a special talent and that he should join the band. In the 1991 tour programme, Jim named it as the one James song that he would want to survive if all but one were accidentally erased.

It was remastered for the Factory Palatine collection in 1992 and was released on a four track sampler with Cath Carroll, Marcel King and Joy Division.  As copies of it "were selling for a hundred pounds" (quote Saul Davies ermmm), it was included as the final track of the Best Of.

WHERE TO GET

Studio Version : James II EP 7" (FAC119)

Studio Version : Village Fire – 5 Songs By James 12" (FAC138)

Studio Version : The Best Of CAS (536 898-2), CD (536 898-4), 2CD (558 173-2)

Studio Version : Fresh As A Daisy - The Singles (2 disc version)

Live Version (Manchester Apollo 4.12.89) : How Was It For You? red 12" (JIM 512), CDS (JIMCD 5)

Live Version (Glastonbury 1990) : The Gathering Sound boxset CD2

Live Version - Getting Away With It Live CD (SANDD119)

CHORDS

A, A, F sharp, E

LYRICS

This song's made up, it's second rate

Cosmetic music, powderpuff

Pop tunes, false rhymes, all lightweight bluffs

Second-hand ideas, no soul, no hate

Wasn't meant to be

Built on complacency

The nightmares ride away

When you refuse to play 

Oh go and read a book

It's so much more worthwhile

Being a song-smith crook

Study death in style

Death in style 

This language used is all worn out

A walking corpse that won't play dead

Disease dragged on from bed to bed

Pay for your twist, pay for your shout

Wasn't meant to be

Built on complacency

Open your eyes and see

That lie is not for we 

Raise a rope and a knife

Cutting out the lie

I don't want to decay

Take the short cut way

Oh go and read a book

It's so much more worthwhile

Being a songsmith crook

Study death in style

Study death in style 

Heard you calling through the drumbeat

Answered with sticks and bones

Scream and shout and dance about the campfire

Can you hear the question, can you feel the reply 

Heard you calling through the drumbeat

Heard you calling through the drumbeat

Can you hear the question, feel the reply

Can you hear the question, feel the reply

Hymn from a village

The hymn from a village