Richard Thompson Album

[No lyrics]

They closed up the sooty gates of Ayres and Company
We stood on the picket line, my Jennifer and me
We blocked the street, now the lorries come and turn about
There's nothing getting in there and there's nothing getting out

Oh, she's just a tender thing
She's risking life and limb
My sweetheart's on the barricade
My heart it skips a beat
There'll be fighting in the street
But hungry folk forget to be afraid
My sweetheart's on the barricade

And here come the managers to hit us on the sly
And tinpot generals with glory in their eyes
Owners, moaners, Judases and Janes
But righteousness is in our eyes, we've got no time for games

In her manner she is mild
And fairly just a child
My sweetheart's on the barricade
For a fair wage in her hand
The equal of a man
She'll stand front rank in the parade
My sweetheart's on the barricade

She's running leaflets through the alley
She's passing hymn books at the rally
Halleluiah!

Friends and neighbours, won't you join the cause
Drill it in the tiny minds of them that make the laws
That workers are human, we're really just the same
We've got to have the nourishment to fill a human frame

Oh, we're people not a mob
And we only wants a job
My sweetheart's on the barricade
We've had it up to here
Too numb to feel the fear
My sweetheart's on the barricade
My heart it skips a beat
There'll be fighting in the street
My sweetheart's on the barricade

[No lyrics]

All of my life I feed the big chimney
Coke and ore, I pour it in
Food for the hungry mouth of the monster
Got to keep the production rolling

Black ore, brown ore and Santander
Pour that Blue Billy onto the bell
Eighteen hundredweight on the barrow
Lift that ore and push like hell

Pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron

Drive the steel bar into the taphole
Pour the metal down into the sows
Blasted one side, frozen the other side
Rain and snow and sleet and blow

Taller than the church's steeple
Forever the big chimney owns my soul
I'm midwife to a pig of iron
Born of flame and sweat and coal

Pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron

All of my life I feed the big chimney
Coke and ore, I pour it in
Food for the hungry mouth of the monster
Got to keep the production rolling

Pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron
Making pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron, pig iron

[No lyrics]

Sitting in the evening
Dreaming of the old times
When a job was there for the steady and strong
I see old faces flickering in the firelight
Faces of condemned men who did no wrong

Drifting through the days
Drifting through the days

A man needs work for his own salvation
A man feels reward for his sweat and his pain
But life's satisfaction has passed us over
And many in this town won't see work again

Drifting through the days
Drifting through the days

I've stood at the gates of a hundred factories
Walked off to other towns looking for pay
Now my hope is gone and I'm crushed like the others
The army of forgotten men, mouldering away

Drifting through the days
Drifting through the days
Drifting through the days

That's the place I used to work
When I was a wild, young turk
It's now the Museum of Industry
Schoolkids get in for free

Brickworks-smell of rotten eggs
Rubber works poured out the dregs
Now it smells of Dettol and pee
Lotteryland's the place to be

Where the steelmill used to stand
There's a park in Lotteryland
Be a pram-pusher on parole
Go windsurfing on the dole

They can put you right to sleep
Better than Brookside or The Street
It's lucky numbers, one, two three
Lotteryland's the place to be

We don't care who runs the shop
Left wing, right wing, curse the lot
A million quid talks sense to me
Lotteryland's the place to be

Now gone is dirt and gone is strife
And gone is struggle and gone is life
"Shove it, mate, I'm busy see"
Lotteryland's the place to be

Now we triple lock the doors
Streets are full of thieves and whores
In a padded cell eternity
Lotteryland's the place to be
Lotteryland's the place to be
Lotteryland's the place to be

[No lyrics]

The song of wheels is in my head and mutiny in my hands
The song of wheels is in my head and mutiny in my hands
I'll go down to the dark place and kill it where it stands
Be still, be still

My body sings the mill-song but my hammer takes its choice
My body sings the mill-song but my hammer takes its choice
Oh, joy of peace descend upon me as I stop its voice
Be still, be still

Beauty takes my breath, I see the shining of the steel
The hand of man steered by God to make the wondrous mill
Piston, pulley, shaft and spindle, every spool and reel
And I can't raise my arm to throw my hammer in the wheel
Rules me still, rules me still, rules me still

[No lyrics]

Stow your gear and charge your lamp
Say goodbye to dark and damp
DSS will pay your stamp
Last shift, close her down

Leave your manhood, leave your pride
Back there on the mucky side
Take the cage for one more ride
Last shift, close her down

Put the business in the black
And they've stabbed us in the back
With old school ties and little white lies
They left our town for scrap

Golden handshake, sling our hooks
Now we're nursemaids, now we're cooks
Now our kids steal pension books
Last shift, close her down

Now the scrapper boys infest
And the wrecking balls caress
Like vermin round a burial ground
They catch the smell of death

Old Grimey's lost its soul
Fifty million tons of coal
And we're beggars on the dole
Last shift, close her down
Last shift, close her down