This, for me was one of the great new industrial songs
It was written in a hurry for the Festival of Fools show the Critics Group put on each year (an annual show made up of sketches based largely on press cuttings of the years events).

Ewan had written a sketch which the actors/singers had trouble learning, so he scribbled this off as a replacement

Jim Carroll

WE ARE THE ENGINEERS
by Ewan MacColl

Two joined hands was our device when our banner first unfurled,
Hands that knew the feel of tools and helped to build a world.
Two hands became a million hands and fashioned down the years
The machines that make the world go round,
The ships and planes and the diesel trains
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers!

We tamed the fire and harnessed metals, learned a thousand skills,
Our hands have made the tools men use in factories, mines and mills;
Ours the hands that throw the switch that puts the world in gear
That makes the plows that turn the soil,
And the ships and planes and the Diesel trains,
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers !

Jails and transportation hulks faced union pioneers;
Police and spies at every turn, a world of doubt and fear,
Our union sprang from poverty, from hunger, blood and tears,
But we fought the cruel laws
And when we lost, we rose to fight again
For the right to work and live like men,
We are the engineers !

We've stamped our feet in the morning queues, known unemployment's toll;
Known hands go soft in idleness, the slow death on the dole;
The rusty lathe and the silent factory mark the hungry years,
And the grass growing green on the shipyard floor,
And the endless beat of marching feet
And men demanding the right to eat
And work as engineers !

And we, the youngest engineers, now march to claim our rights;
For we have learned that nothing's ever won without a fight.
Every battle fought and won reveals a new frontier,
And a world to be won by those who build
The Ships and planes and the diesel trains,
The weaving frames and the building cranes,
We are the engineers !