They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps of respected gentlemen

They say it would be wine and roses if England were for Englishmen again I saw a dirty overcoat at the foot of the pillar of the road

Propped inside was an old man whom time could not erode

The night was snapped by sirens

Those blue lights circled past

The dance-hall called for an ambulance

The bars all closed up fast My silence gazing at the ceiling while roaming the single room

I thought the old man could help me if he could explain the gloom

You really think it's all new?

You really think about it too?

The old man scoffed as he spoke to me, I'll tell you a thing or two I missed the fourteen-eighteen war but not the sorrow afterwards

With my father dead, my mother ran off, my brothers took the pay of hoods

The twenties turned, the north was dead

The hunger strike came marching south

At the garden party not a word was said

The ladies lifted cake to their mouths The next war began and my ship sailed with battle orders writ in red

In five long years of bullets and shells, we left ten million dead

The few returned to old Piccadilly

We limped around Leicester Square

The world was busy rebuilding itself

The architects could not care But how could we know, when I was young, all the changes that were to come?

All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield and now the terror of the scientific Sun

There was masters and servants and servants and dogs

They taught you how to touch your cap

Through strikes and famine and war and peace, England never closed this gap So leave me now the Moon is up but remember all the tales I tell

The memories that you have dredged up are on letters forwarded from hell Its a long way to Tipperary

Its a long way to go Goodbye, Piccadilly

Farewell, Leicester Square The streets were now deserted

The gangs had trudged off home

The lights clicked out in the bedsits and old England was all alone