They say immigrants steal the hubcaps

Of the respected gentlemen

They say it would be wine an' roses

If England were for Englishmen again



I saw a dirty overcoat

At the foot of the pillar of the road

Propped inside was an old man

Who time could not erode

The night was snapped by sirens

Those blue lights circled past

The dancehall called for an ambulance

The bars all closed up fast



My silence gazing at the ceiling

While roaming the single room

I thought the old man could help me

If he could explain the gloom

You really think it's all new

You really think about it too

The old man scoffed as he spoke to me

I'll tell you a thing or two



I missed the fourteen-eighteen war

But not the sorrow afterwards

With my father dead, my mother ran off

My brothers took the pay of hoods

The twenties turned the north was dead

The hunger strike came marching south

At the garden party not a word was said

The ladies lifted cake to their mouths



The next war began, my ship sailed

With battle orders writ in red

In five long years of bullets and shells

We left ten million dead

The few returned to old Piccadily

We limped around Leicester Square

The world was busy rebuilding itself

The architects could not care



But how could we know when I was young

All the changes that were to come?

All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield

And now the terror of the scientific sun

There was masters an' servants an' servants an' dogs

They taught you how to touch your cap

But through strikes an' famine an' war an' peace

England never closed this gap



So leave me now the moon is up

But remember the tales I tell

The memories that you have dredged up

Are on letters forwarded from hell



The streets were now deserted

The gangs had trudged off home

The lights clicked out in the bedsits

old England was all alone