Our history speaks in thunder

From a thousand village halls

In blood and sweat and sacrifice

In honoring every hall

So the forces gathered against the thorn

A-piercing in their side

The brave new world is beckoning

So the olden world must die



In the offices of the city

At all the tables of oak and power

The snares are laid and baited

For the approaching of the hour

A hundred justifications

And the presses are ready to roll

The gateways to the nation

They are firmly under control



CHORUS:

On on on, cried the leaders at the back

We went gallopping down the

Blackened hills

And into the gaping trap

The bridges are burnt behind us

And there's waiting guns ahead

Into the valley of death

Rode the brave hundreds



Well we called for reinforcements

From the friends that we had known

But this is the 1980s

And we were on our own

We never felt like heroes

Or martyrs to a cause

Just battleweary soldiers

In a bloody civil war



CHORUS:

On on on, cried the leaders at the back



The massacre now is over

And the order new enshrined

While a quarter of the nation

Are abandoned far behind

Their leaders offer the cliche words

So righteous in defeat

But noone needs morality

When there isn't enough to eat

The unity bond is broken

And the loyalty songs are fake

I'll screw my only brother

For even a glimpsy at a piece of the cake

We only cry in private now

Behind the shuttered glass

When we think of the charge of this brigade

The severing of the past



CHORUS:

On on on, cried the leaders at the back



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