Lyrics Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson

Last Shift

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