5.15 A.M. lyrics
5.15 A.M. lyrics
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.
The bandit man
Came north to fill his boots,
Came up from cockneyland,
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,
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.
- Artist:Mark Knopfler
- Album:Shangri-La 2004