From a thousand village halls
In blood and sweat and sacrifice
In honoring every hall
So the forces gathered against the thorn
A-piercing in their side
The 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

CHORUS:
On on on, cried the leaders at the back
We went gallopping 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

Well we called for reinforcements
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 battleweary soldiers
In a bloody civil war

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

The massacre now is over
And the order new enshrined
While a quarter of the nation
Are abandoned far behind
Their leaders offer the cliche words
So righteous in defeat
But noone 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 glimpsy at a piece of the cake
We only cry in private now
Behind the shuttered glass
When we think of the charge of this brigade
The severing of the past

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

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