Unknown - Factory Lad Lyrics

The Factory Lad

You wake up in the morning and dawn's as black as night
Your mother shouting up the stairs and you know she's winning the fight
So you'd best venture out of your bed, me lad, for you know it's getting late
And it's down the stairs and up the road and through the factory gate

Chorus
Turning steel how do you feel
As in the chuck you spin?
If you felt like me you'd roll right out
And never roll back in

It's wet and bleak, the morning as you squeeze in through the gate
As you clock on, your bell will ring, eight hours is your fate
Off comes your coat all wet and cold and "Right, lads" is the cry
With an eye on the clock and the other on your lathe, you'll wish that
time could fly

The gaffer's walking down the shop and so it's work you must
The grinding, groaning, spinning metal hotter than the dust
And I'm often dreaming of me girl as we're walking through the park
Whilst I'm gazing on that blueing steel and a million flying sparks

Now old Tom Black, last Friday his final bell did ring
With his hair as white as his face beneath and his oily sunken skin
Now he's made a speech and he's bid farewell to a lifetime working here
And as I shook his hand I felt I'd labored forty years

So when my time it comes and at last I leave this place
I'll walk out past the charge-hand's desk, never turn my face
Up to the gates into the sun, and I'll leave it all behind me
With one regret, for the lads I have left to carry on their grind