Mike Rutherford
"Smallcreep's Day"

Smallcreep had worked for over forty years in the factory. till one day, tired of drilling holes in the same piece of steel and amazed at his fellow workers' lack of interest as to what they wer
Ing, he decided to find out himself.

The plant was so large that he roamed for days glimpsing other worlds that were completely different to his; and not one knew of another's existence. at last he came to the end of the line and t
Before him lay the gleaming new machine.

Satisfied by this sight and with the knowledge that in all the places he had been nothing was really changed, smallcreep returned home.

Between the tick and the tock

It's so very dark in here
There's water on the wall
I can see no lights and what's that sound
That droning far above the smoke
And everywhere I look their eyes are watching me.

Hello my friend
The day is long and I am very hot
This metal world
The lower half of every face is lit
Everytime I look the clock is calling me
On the tick and the tock.

I've got my love to get me there
But I've more pain that I can bare
There is a world to find and share
Oh saturday - oh saturday
And I can see a dying race, who live their lives
On the tick and the tock, in between.

Working in line

I'm hopelessly waiting in line
For what I don't know I don't mind
There's never a day that goes by
Without blood on my hands in my hair.

I'm hopelessly working in line
On what I don't care I don't mind
There's nothing that I would give
To see what comes out at the end.

Cats and rats (in this neighbourhood)

Say I'm going, yes I am going in another day,
Coz if I do go home I've nothing left to say.
I'm a man who clocked on but out of my life.
When the lights go out tonight I'll make my move.
Too many years and all those tears have gone so deep inside me.
Oh no!

Along the edge, above the metal dreamlike streamlike world.
Way up above looking down up row after row of factory machines.
There's no time like the present.
Singing a song I brought along to keep me company.

Aching back, my breath coming fast my feet getting lighter, i
I feel kind of dizzy

Running up, I'm running down.
I am nearly there, I am, I'm nearly there.
The light in the distance is getting so much brighter.
I'm a no-man in a no-man's land.

The metal girders that stand all around have now gone.
The sky through the skylight's a different shade of blue.
Cats and rats in this neighbourhood,
Cats and rats in this neighbourhood.
Look different to me.

Let it be a better day - for you my love.
Let it be a better day - for me my love.

At the end of the day

The day is nearly ended hurry home to your bed
My nights are oh so lonely come and lay down your head
The eyes of all our children growing heavy with sleep
And with one final flicker into a world full of dreams.

Oh I need you now through the lonely nights
And when the morning comes upon us
I'll be holding you so close to me.

The grass is never greener either side of the wall
If I am here or somewhere many miles away
For I have come to realize nothing changes at all.

Oh I need you now through the lonely nights
And when the morning comes upon us
I'll be holding you so close to me.