Artist: Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger
Author: Ewan MacColl
Label: Argo
Year: 1970

Wrote it at the age of 17, inspired by the 1932 Kinder Trespass, a protest walk organised by Manchester's Young Communist League to force free access to privately owned open spaces. Some 3.000 ramblers gathered that day to trespass the Law by walking through Kinder Stout moorland in the Peak District. His song also makes political loops: I may be a wage slave on Monday, but I am a free man on Sunday. Many ramblers ended up in prison that day but in 2009 Kinder Scout was officially pronounced National Nature Reserve. While Ewan sang his song wherever he came and for as long as he lived, the first recorded version came out in '70. In '83 he sang it with his family (including Kirsty), version ending up on Cooking Vinyl cd Black & White - The Definitive Collection. Roud #2677.