Bm A Bm A
Bm A
Our history speaks in thunder from a thousand village halls
Bm A
In blood and sweat and sacrifice, in honouring every call
Bm A
So the forces gathered against the thorn a-piercing in their side
Bm A
A brave new world is beckoning so the older world must die.
Bm A Bm A
Bm A
In the offices of the city, at all the tables of oak and power
Bm A
The snares are laid and baited for the approaching of the hour
Bm A
A hundred justifications and the presses are ready to roll
Bm A
The gateways to the nation they are firmly under control
Chorus
Bm A
On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back
Bm
We went galloping down the blackened hills
A
And into the gaping trap
Em D
The bridges are burnt behind us and there's waiting guns ahead
F# G Bm D G Bm D G
Into the valley of death rode the brave hundreds
Bm A
We called for some assistance from the friends that we had known
Bm A
But this is the 1980s and we were on our own
Bm A
We never felt like heroes or martyrs to a cause
Bm A
Just battle-weary soldiers in a bloody civil war
Chorus
C#m
The massacre now is over and the order new enshrined
A
While a quarter of the nation are abandoned far behind
C#m
The leaders offer the cliche words, so righteous in defeat
A
But no one needs morality when there isn't enough to eat
Ebm
The unity bond is broken and the loyalty songs are fake
I'll screw my only brother for even a glimpse at a piece of the cake
We only cry in private here behind the shuttered glass
D
When we think of the charge of this brigade, the severing of the past
Chorus