Hi Dennis

You don't say which words you are missing, so does this help?


CITY LAMENT
Keith Marsden

1. I was born a city lad so I knew the place was bad,
The only thing to call it was a slum.
But despite the squalor there the people didn't care,
And didn't want the bulldozers to come.
And how they cried that day when we had to move away,
And pack our homes into our little carts,
Then the council knocked it flat and we all thanked God for that,
And none of us have died of broken hearts.

CHORUS: Aye the men from the town hall came and swung their big lead ball,
And one by one the streets began to fall.
Now in new electric flats, we miss the damp and rats,
And we can't grow mushrooms on the bedroom wall.

2. The city streets were mean, like the houses in between,
The bricks were every shade of dirty black.
Electric lights were few and baths we never knew,
And the lavs were round the corner at the back.
Our food was frying panned and our clothes were second hand,
Shoes were something other people wore.
And when dad had drunk his dole and we couldn't pay for coal,
We'd go and pinch some other bugger's door.

3. Normally you'd choke on the ashes and the smoke,
We measured daily soot-fall by the ton.
But when the air went sweet and you could nearly see your feet,
Aye then the mayor fired a celebration gun.
In the early morn of spring you could hear the sparrows sing,
By noon the mills around had done their worst.
So by teatime over all there would hang a sooty pall,
While the sparrows sat there coughing fit to bust.

4. Then the rain would catch the grime and turn it into slime,
And spread it on the houses down below.
So in April we had showers that poisoned all the flowers,
And in winter we made black men out of snow.
Oh aye the place was rough so all us lads were tough,
The coppers came in threes when they came by.
And it hardly made them frown when we burnt the fish 'ole down,
With the sergeant in the middle for the Guy.

5. And though now the City's gone still it's spirit lingers on,
And if one winter's night you're passing by,
You might catch the padding feet of some whippet long deceased,
Or hear a ghostly rag and bone man's cry.
There's a gang of phantom kids still out pinching dustbin lids,
But if you think you hear the sound of strife,
Don't stop whate'er you do for it's nowt to do with you,
It's some ghostly drunkard beating up his wife.

Regards G.