5.15 A.M. lyrics

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.