Verse 1
Bike your father rode to the factory gate
Steel in the water and the ships on the wave
You saw them vanish piece by piece
Traded for the gold and a false kind of peace
They said it was unions
They blamed the bad boss
But the ledger in London didn't count your loss
Whitehall rooms where the lights stay low
Deciding where the marrow of the nation should go
Pre-Chorus
Twenty-five came with a gold-plated chain
Churchill's ghost in the pouring rain
High rates choking the lungs of the North
While the financiers brought their values forth
They called it market pressure
They called it fate
But they signed the warrant at the garden gate
Chorus
Two words in a letter marked strictly private
A managed decline but they told us to hide it
Burned the blueprints and we sold the soul
Trading the engine for a currency goal
Two words in the darkness kept off the tongue
For the workshop of worlds when the bell was rung
Managed decline
Managed decline
Drop
Decline
Managed decline
Verse 2
Tacit knowledge in a machinist's hand
Takes forty years just to understand
But it only takes five for the skill to bleed
Sown in the dirt with a poisonous seed
Supply chains snapping like a rusted wire
Walking through the ash of a cold hearth fire
Treasury pens writing death for the Clyde
With no one left on the workers' side
Pre-Chorus
Eighty-one arrived with a monetarist sting
Checking the boxes that the ministers bring
Overvalued sterling like a crown of thorns
While the industry dies and the capital mourns
It wasn't an accident
It wasn't a flaw
It was the heavy hand of the systemic law
Chorus
Two words in a letter marked strictly private
A managed decline but they told us to hide it
Burned the blueprints and we sold the soul
Trading the engine for a currency goal
Two words in the darkness kept off the tongue
For the workshop of worlds when the bell was rung
Managed decline
Managed decline
Bridge
They never visited the shop floor grime
Too busy chasing the interest chime
Consett is quiet and Corby is cold
Sold for the glimmer of international gold
Once you break the line it stays broken forever
You can't glue the pieces back together
A hundred years of a planned retreat
Left the kingdom standing on concrete feet
Chorus
Two words in a letter marked strictly private
A managed decline but they told us to hide it
Burned the blueprints and we sold the soul
Trading the engine for a currency goal
Two words in the darkness kept off the tongue
For the workshop of worlds when the bell was rung
Managed decline
Managed decline
Drop
Forbidden words
The letter says decline
Managed decline
Pull it down
Build it thin
Managed decline
Comments
No comments yet.