Song Lyrics

I saw a blue umbrella in Princes Street Gardens
Heading out west for the Lothian Road
An Evening News stuffed deep in his pocket
Wrapped up in his problems to keep away the cold

Grierson's spirit haunts the dockyards
(Where) the only men working (are on the) documentary crews
Shooting film as the lines get longer
As the seams run out, as the oil runs dry

Hey there laddie, internal exile
When will you (realise) {see that} we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, internal exile
When will you realise (we've) {you've} got to let go?

Starlings wheeling round Georgian spires
And the fires of Grangemouth burn the skies
A lion sleeps in a tenement close
In the country that's tired and deaf to his roar

Hey there laddie, internal exile
When will you (realise) {see that} we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, internal exile
When will you realise (we've) {you've} got to let go?

We've got to go now
Won't you please let us go now?

They bury a wasteland deep in the wilderness
Poison the soil and reap the harvest
Of blind indifference, greed and apathy
Sowed way back in our history

The fish are few and the harbours are empty
The keels now rot on our oil slicked shores
The sheep are gone, the farms deserted
(We're) It's out of sight and we're out of mind

Hey there laddie, internal exile
When will you (realise) {see that} we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, internal exile
When will you realise (we've) {you've} got to let go?

(We're gonna go now)
(We're gonna go now)

Like our fathers before us we've eyes for America
Dream of a new life on foreign shores
(But) wherever we go we'll always know
That the land we stand on is never our own

Hey there laddie, internal exile
When will you (realise) {see that} we've got to let go?
Hey there lassie, internal exile
When will you realise (we've) {you've} got to let go?

We're internal exiles
We've got to, got to let go
We're internal exiles
As if we've got to let go
We've got to let go
We've got to go now
Won't you please let us go now?
Internal exile
Internal exile
Won't you please let us go now?

Derek William Dick, Mike Simmonds

The duration of Internal Exile [Yang Recording 1995] is 4:48 minutes and seconds.