Mad Martins
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Blood, Fire and Smoke (Ballad of the Incendiary)
Lyrics
Could I meet with Angels I’d sing them a song;
I’d sing of my Jesus and tell of his charms,
And beg them to bear me to his loving arms."
With his fiery red whiskers
and eyes burning with rage,
Jonathan Martin broke out of his cage
to set York Minster ablaze.
Selling pamphlets of his life
so his dreams would always shine,
his lips to the tips of an angel’s wing,
he said he’d brought the sun.
He told the ‘Lord’s Folk’ around him,
those Citizens of Devilish Mind:
“Hell is opening to take you,
ye blind leaders of the blind.”
When half-past two o’clock struck,
he lighted up his fires
and this crazy Incendiary of Unsound Mind
ignited his wildest desires.
And it’s blood, fire and smoke,
long may you Beef-eaters choke.
You serpents and vipers of Hell,
in flames your Minster I burn.
"Lord what a wretched land is this,
that yields us no supply.
No cheering fruits, no wholesome trees,
nor streams of living joy!
But pricking thorns through all the ground
and mortal poisons grow;
and all the rivers are found
with dangerous waters flow...
Long nights and darkness dwell below,
with scarce a twinkling ray;
but the bright world to which we go
is everlasting day."
long may you Beef-eaters choke.
You serpents and vipers of Hell,
with flames your Minster I burn.
And its blood, fire and smoke,
long may you Beef-eaters choke.
You serpents and vipers of Hell,
with flames your Minster I burn:
with flames your Minster,
with flames your Minster,
with flames your Minster I burn.
© 2017 Whippet Records
Copyright Control MCPS/PRS
Recording Credits
Gary Miller - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin
Keith Armstrong - Spoken Word Recitation
Iain Petrie - Electric Guitar, Organ, Bass Guitar, Drums, Djembe, Tambourine,
Shaker, Atmospheric Sound Effects, Backing Vocals
York Minster on Fire [pen and ink], anon (eyewitness), 1829.
'Jonathan Martin', Illustration by Helen Temperley © 2019
Additional Text
Jonathan left his lodgings on January 27th 1829, telling William Lawn that he was bound for Leeds. But he had no intention of ever going there. He secured a room in Tadcaster and on the morning of Sunday, February 1st, Jonathan left his wife and returned to York. That night he attended Evensong at the Minster. During the service, he hid behind a tomb in the north transept. When everyone else had left and the doors were locked, he began the completion of his plan. He scaled the choir gates, using rope which he had cut from the belfry tower and knotted into a ladder. He then constructed and lit a bonfire of hymn books, ripped up kneeling cushions, textile hangings, hassocks, and anything else that would burn, making his escape through a window with the help of the rope ladder. The fire burned for hours before its discovery the next morning. Apart from the external walls and windows, the whole of the quire at the east end of the Minster, including the organ, all the original woodwork, the medieval roof and some of the stonework, was destroyed.
