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
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
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
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