The Factory Lad by Colin Dryden is a great retirement song.

The Factory Lad
by Colin Dryden


You wake up in the morning and dawn's as black as night,
Your mother's shouting up the stairs and you know she's winning the fight
So you'd best venture out of your bed, me lad, for you know it's getting late
And it's down the stairs and up the road and through the factory gate

Chorus:
Turning steel, how do you feel,
As in the chuck you spin?
If you felt like me you'd roll right out
And never roll back in

Wet and bleak the morning as you squeeze in through the gate,
As you clock on your bell'll ring - eight hours is your fate
Off comes your coat, all wet and cold and, "Right, lads!" is the cry
With an eye on the clock and the other on the lathe
You wish that time could fly

The gaffer's walking down the shop and so it's work you must
The grinding, groaning, spinning metal - the hot air and the dust
And I'm often dreaming of me girl as we're walking through the park
Whilst I'm gazing on the blueing steel and a million flying sparks

Now old Tom Black, last Friday his final bell did ring
With his hair as white as his face beneath and his oily, sunken skin
Well, he's made a speech, and he's bid farewell to a lifetime working here
And as I shook his hand I felt I'd laboured forty years

So when me time it comes and at last I leave this place
I'll walk out past the chargehand's desk and I'll never turn my face
Up to the gates, into the sun and I'll leave it all behind me
With one regret, for the lads I've left to carry on the grind

Richard