You wake up in the morning and dawn's as black as night
Your mother shouting up the stairs, 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

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

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

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

Oh, but time can't fly as fast as, a lathe and so it's work you must,
With the grinding, groaning, spinning metal, the hot air and the dust 
And many's the time I'm with me girl and we're walking through the park
While gazing on the spinning steel or the welder's blinding spark

Oh, 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

Well, old Tom, he left last week: his final bell did ring 
His hair was white as the face beneath his oily sunken skin
But he made a speech and he said farewell to a lifetime working here
As I shook his hand, I thought of hell – at a lathe for forty years

Oh, 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

Oh, when my time comes, as come it must, then I will leave this place 
I'll walk right out past the charge-hand's dock and never turn my face
Up through the gates into the sun, and I'll leave it all behind 
With one regret, for the lads I've left, to carry on the grind

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