From the recording The Moving On Song
From the CD "An Bóithrín."
Between 1957 and 1965, Ewan MacColl collaborated with Peggy Seeger to produce a series of radio documentaries for BBC Radio called “The Radio Ballads.” They were a combination of field recorded speech, collected folk music, and new composition that broke ground in radio production. Thematically based, “The Moving On Song” was written for this series and was first broadcast as part of the show entited “The Travelling People” on April 17th, 1964. The production involved interviews across the British countryside and into Scotland. “The Moving On Song” quickly entered the folk repertoire, sometimes called “Go, Move, Shift”.
I’m not sure if my first exposure was from Christy Moore or Eddie Delahunt, an Irish native who played extensively around Kansas City during my time there. Either way, I’ve known the song for a long time.
Lyrics
Born in the middle of the afternoonIn a horse-drawn wagon on the old A5The eighteen wheelers shook my bedThe policemen came and the little one saidYou’d better get born in...someplace elseRefrainMove along, get along, Move along, get along, Go, move, shiftBorn at the tattie lifting timeIn a canvas tent in a tattie fieldThe farmer said the works all doneIt’s time that you was moving onYou’d better get born in...someplace elseBorn in a common by a building siteWhere the ground is rutted by a trail of wheelsA local Christian says to meYou’re lowering the price of our propertyWould you mind being born in someplace else?Born at the back of a Hawthorne hedgeWhere the white hoar-frost lay on the groundNo Eastern kings came bearing giftsBut the order came to shiftYou’d better get born in...someplace elseThe eastern sky was full of starsBut none shone brighter than the restThe wise men came so stern and strictAnd brought the order to evictYou’d better get born in...someplace elseWagon, tent, or trailer bornLast month, last year, or in far off daysBorn here or a thousand miles awayThere’s always men nearby who’ll sayYou’d better get born in...someplace else