5:15 Am

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 Ho, the bandit man Came north to fill his boots Came up from Cockneyland E-type jags and flashy suits And 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.