The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76431   Message #1355214
Posted By: mg
12-Dec-04 - 10:03 PM
Thread Name: songs about building boats/ships?
Subject: Lyr Add: FAIRFIELD CRANE
here's the one about the Clyde

The Fairfield Crane
^^ Archie Fisher / Norman Buchan / Bobby Campbell
I was born in the shadow of the Fairfield crane
Where the blast of a freighter's horn
Was the very first sound that reached my ears
On the morning I was born
I lay and I listened to the shipyard sound
Coming out of the great unknown
And was sung to sleep by the mother tongue
That was to be my own

But before I grew to be one year old
I heard the sirens scream
As a city watched in the blacked-out night
A wandering searchlight's beam
And then at last I awoke and rose
To my first day of peace
For I'd learned that the battle to stay alive
Was never going to cease

I sat and I listened to my father tell
Of the days that he once knew
When you either sweated for a measly wage
Or you joined the parish queue
As times grew harder day by day
Along the riverside
I oft-times heard my mother say
It was tears that made the Clyde

Now I've sat in the school from nine till four
And I've dreamed of the world outside
Where the riveter and the plater watch
Their ships slip to the Clyde
I've served my time behind shipyard gates
And I sometimes mourned my lot
But if any man tries to mess me about
I'll fight like my father fought

(as sung by Archie Fisher)


also I remembered that I have one about welding on ships..probably in Bremerton WA.
^^
Solder and weld, solder and weld
I once was a student but I was expelled
I told my old man and he hollered and yelled
Didn't raise you to solder and weld Dear Billy
Didn't raise you to solder and weld

I got me a torch and I got me a lamp
Got me an ache and I got me a cramp
I hang upside down in the cold and the damp
All day as I solder and weld for a living
All day as I solder and weld

We breathe in the mold we breathe in the dust
Breathe in asbestos we breathe in the rust
There's not any air us poor welders can trust
All day as we solder and weld how it smelled
All day as we solder and weld

Someday I'll ask the God who made steel
Did you think of the heat us poor welders might feel
And it makes the hereafter seem a little more real
Just don't make me solder and weld for eternity
Don't make me solder and weld