He met the world as a Dalkeith boy,

raised from a shaft at Monktonhall

In a well oiled cage,

That locked away his dreams,

An '85 veteran face from the gallery,

A ghost from the civil war in the family

He stood his ground on the picketline

'Til all that he was left with

Were his father's cough

And his mother's eyes

That would hold a tear

For the very first time

When the government took his job away.

Now fist in hand he'll stand in line

Declare his name and mark his time

To some the only proof that they're alive



He could have been you

He could have been me

He could have been anybody

But he was born lucky



He made his first down payment

On a sharp Italian suit

He sewed razor blades into the lapels,

See him sweating on the dance floor,

Cool dust oozing out of every pore

A hard man with a hard life,

And that's a story that he'll tell you

Down at Easter Road till his throat is raw

On a Saturday, he knows the score

Till the whistle blows and,

The colours with their tempers fade away.



(chorus)



On the helipads at Aberdeen,

Bound for platforms drilling oil rich seas,

Where the trawlers are getting fewer

Every year.

By the furnaces at Ravenscraig,

By the padlocks holding John Brown's gates,

In the desert, in the fields of South Armagh,

Where the poppies grow,

Behind the Hampden roar,

Behind the drums in Genoa.

On the deck that rides a South Atlantic swell,

Born to figh tout of the tightest corner.

You can bet on him with the odds against you.

They'll not put him down

No matter how they try