New Model Army - The charge

Our history speaks in thunder From a thousand village halls In blood and sweat and sacrifice In honoring every hall So the forces gathered against the thorn A-piercing in their side The brave new world is beckoning So the olden world must die In the offices of the city At all the tables of oak and power The snares are laid and baited For the approaching of the hour A hundred justifications And the presses are ready to roll The gateways to the nation They are firmly under control CHORUS: On on on, cried the leaders at the back We went gallopping down the Blackened hills And into the gaping trap The bridges are burnt behind us And there's waiting guns ahead Into the valley of death Rode the brave hundreds Well we called for reinforcements From the friends that we had known But this is the 1980s And we were on our own We never felt like heroes Or martyrs to a cause Just battleweary soldiers In a bloody civil war CHORUS: On on on, cried the leaders at the back The massacre now is over And the order new enshrined While a quarter of the nation Are abandoned far behind Their leaders offer the cliche words So righteous in defeat But noone needs morality When there isn't enough to eat The unity bond is broken And the loyalty songs are fake I'll screw my only brother For even a glimpsy at a piece of the cake We only cry in private now Behind the shuttered glass When we think of the charge of this brigade The severing of the past CHORUS: On on on, cried the leaders at the back