5.15 AM

Snow laying all around 
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 
 [bad word] to a giant car 
shroud of snow upon the roof
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 [bad word] 
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

The bandit man
Came north to fill his boots
Came up from [bad word] 
E-type jags and flashy suits
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
 [bad word] 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 [bad word] 
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.