The Charge

Our history speaks in thunder from a thousand village halls

In blood and sweat and sacrifice, in honouring every call

So the forces gathered against the thorn a-piercing in their side

A brave new world is beckoning so the olden world must die.

In the offices of the city, at all the tables of oak and power

The snares are laid and baited for the approaching of the hour

A hundred justifications and the presses are ready to roll

The gateways to the nation they are firmly under control

On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back

We went galloping down the blackened hills

And into the gaping trap

The bridges are burnt behind us and there's waiting guns ahead

Into the valley of death rode the brave hundreds

We called for some assistance from the friends that we had known

But this is the 1980s and we were on our own

We never felt like heroes or martyrs to a cause

Just battle-weary soldiers in a bloody civil war

The massacre now is over and the order new enshrined

While a quarter of the nation are abandoned far behind

Their leaders offer the clich?words, so righteous in defeat

But no one needs morality when there isn't enough to eat

The unity bond is broken and the loyalty songs are fake

I'll screw my only brother for even a glimpse at a piece of the cake

We only cry in private here behind the shuttered glass

When we think of the charge of this brigade, the severing of the past

On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back

We went galloping down the blackened hills

And into the gaping trap

The bridges are burnt behind us and there's waiting guns ahead

Into the valley of death rode the brave hundreds