I had absolutely no idea that I would encounter so many brothers and sisters in arms when I embarked on this. I would love to hear some of the songs.

This is my own effort at writing a song about working in journalism. I'm sorry that I haven't worked out the clicky things yet and MP3 and Wav files remain one of the glorious mysteries. Shucks, I was always better in the print medium anyway.

BOYS OF THE BYLINE BRIGADE

It's four in the morning, the paper's in bed, the Newsroom's as quiet as the tomb.
When the old man gets up from his seat by the door, another day's nightwork has been done.
Like a greying old shadow he peels on his coat and he knocks off the lights on his floor
And he melts with the darkness into the grey dawn just before the presses start to roar.

CHORUS: And the glass in his hand feeds the pain in his eyes alone, insecure and afraid,
A victim of booze, overwork and old age and the boys of the byline brigade.

That morning the byline brigade will arrive, those bright keen young men about town,
And they'll shout into three different phones at one time and get the whole damn thing written down.
When the country edition's being flogged on the street and the City's being checked on the stone,
That old man who once interviewed princes and kings is quietly drinking alone. CHORUS

And he stands at the bar and remembers the time when he was as good as the best,
In those days when his shorthand was clear-cut and plain and he'd work twenty hours without rest.
In the days when his copy ran just as it stood, lead stories and bylines galore,
The first with the angles, the first to the phone, the first with his foot in the door. CHORUS

If he had only licked more arses and got drunk with the boss, God knows where he might have been today—
Not manning the doomwatch at the dead of the night and curing the shakes half the day.
He had died on the day that his shorthand broke down from too long pushing pen, soul and mind,
And they'll bury his body along with his pride in six lonely lines on page nine. CHORUS