Stuart Marson wrote the song and these are his lyrics, taken from his CD Where Falcons Fly. The Simon Nicol version differs slightly.

November, cold wind and rain, the Post Office workers complain

Damp crowded buses go silently by, homeward their journey again

And at each stop old friends say farewell and they leave for the streets where they dwell

Upon the top deck somebody sings, with thoughts far away from this place

To the halls that the great singers grace


And those who were moved by the song, carry the memory long

At each new dawn the melody runs, over the Lancashire hills

Benches and bare wooden floors, a church hall with welcoming doors
In a back ward of streets of an old grey town come echoes of distant applause
And the newspaper falls in the hall, lying unfurled by the door
It carries five lines of a critical kind, that wouldn’t detain you long
They even got the name wrong

Chorus

December the night clouds come, the day’s work it is now done
Late afternoon, it’s dark here by five, rain on the bus windows run
And home in the evening gloom, fire burns in the front room
Music lies open, the metronome stands, window frames shake in the gust
Piano keys gather the dust

Chorus (Twice)