John Graham Lough Lyrics

I once had a book that I sat down to look at

To spend just an hour or so

And I read on its pages of bygone ages

And people who lived long ago

There were pictures of faces and stories of places

I learned of the old Beldon Clough

And there at the back, in an old photograph

Was Greenhead, the birthplace, of John Graham Lough

On an old gatehouse tower that portrayed the power

Of Scotland and her nationhood

The mute statues stand and they gaze at the land

That he ploughed on in his boyhood

As a young boy at play he made figures in clay

On the walls and the ceiling he drew

Nobody taught him, his genius was born in him

He learned his art from the world that he knew

One evening George Silvertop, passing by, chanced to stop

He took one look and he knew

And to John Lough he unfurled works of art from a world

He knew one day he'd belong to

What inspired him so was the great Michelangelo

Master of figure and form

And there at the Sneep where the Derwent runs deep

The image of his masterpiece, Milo, was born

Apprenticed to trade to John Marshall of Shotleyfield

He learned a stone carver's skill

Then one day from the quayside he sailed on the high tide

To London, his dreams to fulfil

He knew good times and lean times and hard in-between times

He weathered the storm and came through

He won great acclaim and great riches and fame

The genius of John Lough the whole world soon knew

If you're walking by Shotley Hall turn your eye

Those statues from Greenhead you'll see

They stand on the wall and their eyes they now fall

On the passing of you and of me

Now some men they're dreamers and some men they're schemers

And some they just sink without trace

But try as I can I just can't understand

Why John Lough is unsung in his native place

I once had a book that I sat down to look at

To spend just an hour or so