The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #31006 Message #405512
Posted By: Susanne (skw)
24-Feb-01 - 05:59 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Housing Songs
Subject: Lyr Add: SEE IT COME DOWN (John Pole)
SEE IT COME DOWN (John Pole)
In the house where I was born, first home I knew There's corrugated iron blinding all the windows In the garden Dad made round the lawn Where green grass grew There's muck and rubble and mud, half bricks and cinders For the developers have come to town And soon I'll see it, see it come down See it come down
My old mum they moved her to a high rise flat Where she misses her mates and hopes we'll see her Sunday She lives alone with a lovely view and a clean doormat Afraid that death will catch her napping some day The lady with meals on wheels, the one friend she's found Though she cries for the old place, she won't see it come down See it come down
Cloud of dust like smoke round a demolition site where I drive my crane Swinging the big steel ball that smashes walls in Winch it back careful, get the cable right, let it swing again There's a little more no-man's-land as each brick falls in A car park and an office block when I've cleared the ground They've paid me to see it, and now I've seen it come down Seen it come down
We was all one where we lived, wish we were now We had debts and dole and kids but we did have neighbours Where the street was they want to build a tombstone tower Like a monster concrete moneybox for strangers Every last square foot of it worth a hundred pounds Some day we'll see that come tumbling down See it come down
[1994:] In some parts of [Glasgow after the War] there were 400 people to the acre and to rehouse them at minimal cost took precedence over what they wanted. People who had lived for generations in cramped conditions with outside toilets and no bathrooms needed better housing, but they didn't want to leave the areas where they had grown up and the close communities they lived in. It became a common sight to see sad little groups watching bleakly as their former homes, and those of their parents and grandparents were demolished. But the politicians still knew best. (Meg Henderson, Finding Peggy 89)