Contains a sample from "South American Getaway" by Burt Bacharach.
Kids are spitting on the town hall steps and frightening old ladies
I dreamt that I was living back in the mid 1980s
People marching, people shouting, people wearing pastel leather
The future's ours for the taking now
if we just stick together
And I said: "Hey, lay your burden down
seems the last day of the miners' strike was the Magna Carta in this part of town"
Well, my body sank below the ground
it became as black as night
overhead the sound of horses' hooves
people fighting for their lives
Some joker in a headband was still getting chicks for free
And Big Brother was still watching you
back in the days of '83
And I said: "Hey, lay your burden down
seems the last day of the miners' strike was the Magna Carta in this part of town"
Well by 1985, I was as cold a cold could be
but no-one was underground to dig me out and set me free
'87 socialism gave way to socialising
so put your hands up in the air once more:
the north is rising
And I said: "Hey, lay your burden down
seems the last day of the miners' strike was the Magna Carta in this part of town"
Oh, sing Hallelujah
Oh, sing Hallelujah
Don't let them fool you again
Oh, sing Hallelujah
By now I'm sick and tired of just living in this hole
so I took the ancient tablets
blew off the dust
swallowed them whole
Oh come on, let's get together
Oh come on, the past is gone
Well, the very first commandment: Come on, come on, let's get it on
Come on, let's get it on
Get it on!
Oh, get it on
"Hey, lay your burden down
seems the last day of the miners' strike was the Magna Carta in this part of town"
From Mojo, February 2003:
We had to do a new song contractually but we wanted to do something good, and that wouldn't seem out of place with everything else on the record. It didn't seem appropriate to go off on some speed garage trip at the end of the album. Candida come up with the Burt Bacharach sample, but the words were problematic.
I'd had this dream where I was listening to this John Lennon song, woke up and realised it wasn't a Lennon song; I wrote it down and tried to remember the tune. It's a bit iffy writing about the Miners' Strike when I don't know that much about it. When it was on, Russell was going out on pickets all the time, but I had no interest in politics at the time. I kinda regretted it later. I tried to make the song more allusive rather than some Billy Bragg thing.