What is happening here?
Photograph of a northern English mining village, mid 1970's
What is happening here?
Nothing makes any sense.
They closed the workshop,
they closed the mine, they closed the yards
and tell us it’s for the best...
we get our pay-off quids all set to make our sweet little sweets shop
with no financial business borrowing buying selling skills
so go bust to land upon the dole
as our Johnny wanting to be a boiler maker
and our Tracy doing styles see no applications now or ever more
behind the shuttered windows, pad-locked gates and doors
in this bleak mid-winter
lasting oh so oh so painfully through all the seasons of our lives
and Da goes upon the drink and I find no voice to sing or prey
while Johnny and Tracy experiment with encapsulated ecstasy
'cause Da and I no longer promise or point or even offer care.
What is happening here?
Young Jones told Da it's like the wind
unseen forces stirring somewhere off in unseen lands
and here the wind does blow a tiding spare
and we, while sitting on our hands and watching the coke cans tumble
the sale signs flutter
we sit upon our idles stirred only to cover our eyes when this wind
this unseen force
gusts through all the crevices of our lives
leaving cold hearts and cooler smiles glued upon our swollen lips.
What is happening here?
Young Jones told Da
we say the tree's a' blowing
though says Jones its not the tree a' blowing
but the wind that sirs the boughs
rising from an unseen source a thousand miles away
in those boardrooms and those banks
making comp-e-tion and econ-o-mies and inter-national-decisions
with Johnny in the clink for affray while on the drink
and Tracy with her pretty hair now mohawked purple
above her whitey face and swollen tum
leaves Da and I to scream each night against the distant winds.
What is happening here?
Da said we walked a road travelled by our mums and dads
and their parent’s parents too
said next to which we built our churches and our clubs
our meeting rooms and more
we learned to read and claim our rights
and gave our kids security
now look says Da in his cups
look at what they done
closing pit and port and all
they've stamped upon the web we made
while them bosses talk their doggerel stuff
my Johnny's to be done again
big time Johnny my little one
for beating a cop or two to pulp
and Tracy dead from drugs and all
with the tot who died inside and all
and all because as Jones did say
the wind unseen does blow amuck.
