Beeswing

It is too bad this song has so few comments. Let's remedy that. To folks like me not native to Britain, some of the words were not familiar, so here are my annotations and comments:

The Summer of Love was 1967, the summer when most of the world became aware of hippies and the counter-culture. Extensive press coverage of the Human Be-In and the mass influx to the Haight-Ashbury district inspired young people to adopt the hippie style and philosophy. '67 also marked a big increase in war protesting (burning flags), awareness of war atrocities (burning babies), and political polarization over the war (hawks against the doves.)

Our narrator was 19 in 1967, making him approximately the age of Richard Thompson. He came to town, so we may deduce he grew up on a farm or in a rural community.

He got a job in a steamie, or large steam laundry. It was on, as mentioned by another poster, Cauldrum St. which is in Dundee, Scotland.

The unnamed girl--if not a hippie proper--has the same free spirit attitude of one. She isn't made for a conventional job or lifestyle. Most hippies eventually dropped back in to society, though this is the story of the consequences of holding on to the life too long.

Busking means street performing. It can refer to the old organ-grinders, or street mimes, or musicians or jugglers or clowns. Basically any kind of performing in a public place for money. It is one step above panhandling, so buskers are sometimes welcome and sometimes not.

“..and we could tinker..” Tinkering refers to tinsmithing. A tinker is someone who repairs things of light metal, especially tin. It is also a synonym for a gypsy or traveler, as itinerant workers often did this kind of work to support themselves.

“working down the Gower” The Gower is a peninsula on the coast of Wales known for its natural beauty. “The work,” the two lovers do there is probably itinerant farm work, since later the narrator speaks of waiting for the frost.

“sleeping rough back on the Derby beat..” Derby is a city in the English midlands that was an early industrial center and major railway point. One might assume this means she is probably working as a prostitute there, or perhaps is simply a vagrant sleeping where she can.

“White Horse in her hip pocket..” White Horse has been a popular Scotch Whiskey for over a century. Read as: She has become an alcoholic.

“..and a wolfhound at her feet.” The narrator says she had animal in her eyes. It is left to an animal now to be her only faithful companion.

“Romany Brown..” Romany, or Romani, is an ethnic group whose origins are traced back to India, but now exist almost all over the world. The word “gypsy” was misapplied to them in the belief that they originated in Egypt.

The song ends with an expression of longing for the girl as she was, but that necessarily means the narrator would have to be as he was. It is not just a need to hold her again, but to return to a time when he could be carefree, without responsibility, and his whole life was ahead of him. It was a relationship that was doomed from the beginning, yet he wouldn’t want her to be anything but the wild, free, innocent first love of his youth. You lose all those qualities with the passage of time, and we all ache with the need to hang on to them.