Marrakesh Express revisited: a song for Stop HS2

Well, fancy that. Having thought for many years that “Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills & Nash was a song about indulging in Morocco’s finest (by which I do not mean tagine), I now find that Graham Nash was inspired by an actual train journey he made in 1966, southbound from Casablanca.

Fast forward by fifty years to the present day, and we find HS2 proceeding at full steam ahead in the UK. Or at least it was until Carillion collapsed yesterday. Might this be an opportunity for the political class to admit that HS2 is nothing but an unaffordable vanity project that ought to be derailed with all due alacrity? Time will tell.

Perhaps this is where Stop HS2 and any associated campaigns might find themselves in need of an inspiring song to help get the message through. With grateful acknowledgment to Crosby, Stills & Nash for the original, here’s a lyrical contribution in reverse parody style – from a joyful rail journey to a joyless rail project – that keeps as close as possible to the sound and structure of Marrakesh Express. And it works on solo acoustic guitar, if slowed down a touch and played in Nashville listening room style – at least it did for me.

Looking at England through patronising eyes

Plan to drive the train through unspoilt countryside

Ducks and pigs and chickens flee

Animal carnage plain to see

Equestrian ladies scatter, black and blue

Talking cobblers from the dark depths of our mind

Keen to get away with grand designs unkind

Hope our pack of lies ahead

Keeps you back and well misled

Listen not to what we’ve said to you

Don't you know we're riding on the HS2 Express
Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Inflicting much unpleasantness

All on board the gravy train

All on board the gravy train

We’ll be squandering all your money just to take you there

We sell you garbage and despair

Plot the train from Manchester going south

Blowing smokescreens from the corners of my, my, my, my, my mouth

Noise pollution hangs in the air

Thundering locos shake the square

Country dwellers, we’ll knock down their homes (don’t want to hear you now)

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

It’s burning money to excess

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Vanity project of distress

All on board the gravy train

All on board the gravy train