Something About England

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and 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
Whom time could not erode
The night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled fast
The dance hall 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 and 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 Piccadilly
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 and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
Through strikes and famine and war and peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
Remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell

(It's a long way to Tipperary)
(It's a long way to go)

(Goodbye, Piccadilly)
(Farewell, Leicester Square)

The streets were by now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked out in the bedsits
Old England was all alone