5.15 A.M.

5.15 A.M.

Snow laying all around

A collier cycles home

From his night shift underground

Past the silent pub

Primary school, workingmens club

On the road from the pithead

The churchyard packed

With mining dead

Then beneath the bridge

He comes to a giant car

A shroud of snow upon the roof

A mark ten jaguar

He thought the man was fast asleep

Silent, still and deep

Both dead and cold

Shot through

With bullet holes

The one armed bandit man

Came north to fill his boots

Came up from cockneyland

E-type jags and flashy suits

Put your money in

Pull the levers

Watch them spin

Cash cows in all the pubs

But he preferred the new nightclubs

Nineteen sixty-seven

Bandit men in birdcage heaven

La dolce vita, sixty-nine

All new to people of the tyne

Who knows who did what

Somebody made a call

They said his hands

Were in the pot

That he'd been skimming hauls

He picks up the swag

They gaily gave away

Drives his giant jag

Off to his big pay day

The bandit man

Came north to fill his boots

Came up from cockneyland

E-type jags and flashy suits

The bandit man

Came up the great north road

Up to geordieland

To mine

The mother lode

Seams blew up or cracked

Black diamonds came hard won

Generations toiled and hacked

For a pittance and black lung

Crushed by tub or stone

Together

And alone

How the young and old

Paid the price of coal

Eighteen sixty-seven

My angel's gone to heaven

He'll be happy there

Sunlight and sweet clean air

They gather round the glass

Tough hewers and crutters

Child trappers and putters

The little foals and half-marrows

Who pushed

And pulled the barrows

The hod boys

And the rolleywaymen

5.15 A.M.