Pressure Drop

1st January 2010
Billy Bragg
Number of discs: 1

I walked down from the station
Cos I wanted to see
The kind of things that you might miss
From the back of a taxi
There’s just no way to tell you
What these things mean to me
This is home…

The place I threw my guts up
Outside the old wine bar
The junk shop on the corner
Where I bought my first guitar
The grass verge by the big flats
Where we sat and revv’ed our cars
This is home…

Home
Nothing ever changes
Home
And I wouldn’t want it to
Home
Everything’s the same as
I left it when I went away to make myself anew

The local team don’t really have
No local players now
The glory days are far away
But we’re getting by somehow
You’d think we’d won the Champions League
If you listened to the crowd
At home…

This place always gets to me
Like some old familiar song
Bringing back those memories
That I thought were long gone
I guess that you can move away
But you cannot escape where you’re from..

Home
Nothing ever changes
Home
And I wouldn’t want it to
Home
Everything’s the same as
I left it when I went away to make myself anew

The old familiar wallpaper
And a battered old settee
The china doll that Dad brought back
From the war in Germany
The faintest smell of creosote
And a cup of milky tea
This is home…

I’ll have the same again
Something to ease the pain
Of coming down again

I’m not a child
I’m not a child

I’ll have the same again
An evening full of rain
Lost my way home again

I’m not a child
I’m not a child

Somewhere between the midnight and a cold and empty dawn
I found myself out walking on the streets where I was born
And I came upon a stranger who looked me in the face
And asked me what I was doing in this God-forsaken place?

I don’t need to be forgiven for some thing I haven’t done
Nor for wanting my family to find their place in the sun
If you keep this pressure on just don’t be surprised
If I can’t summon up my dignity while you’re roughing up my pride

There will be a reckoning for the peddlers of hate
Who spread their poison all across this estate
And a reckoning too for the politicians who
Left us to this fate – there will be a reckoning

Then just a few days later a man came to my door
To ask me if I thought that this place was worth fighting for
And though I recognised his reasons, I just could not agree
When he told me that my neighbour would be my enemy

I’m gonna tell all you fascists you may be surprised
The people all over this world are getting organised
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

Race hatred cannot stop us this one thing I know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

All of you fascists are bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
You’re bound to lose !
You fascists ! Are bound to lose

People of every colour marching side by side
Marching ‘cross these fields where a million fascists died
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

I’m going into this battle, take my union gun
Gonna end this world of slavery before this war is won
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

To the misanthropic, misbegotten merchants of gloom
Who look into their crystal balls and prophesise our doom,
Let the death knell chime, it’s the end of time
Let the cynics put their blinkers on and toast our decline

Don’t become demoralised by this chorus of complaint
It’s a sure sign that the old world is terminally quaint
Tomorrow’s going to be a better day
No matter what the siren voices say
Tomorrow’s going to be a better day
We’re going to make it that way

To the pessimistic populists who harbour no doubt
That every day we make our way to Hell in a handcart
And the snarky set who are sniping to get
Anyone who sticks their head above the parapet

Don’t be disheartened baby, don’t be fooled,
Take it from someone who knows: the glass is half full
Tomorrow’s going to be a better day
No matter what the siren voices say
Tomorrow’s going to be a better day
We’re going to make it that way

Just like the heroes of Cable Street
No Pasaran! No Pasaran!
We fought the fascists to defeat
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Just like they did in the Second World War
No Pasaran! No Pasaran!
We booted the Nazi’s out the door
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Victory! Victory!
We came in our hundreds and we won a victory
And we dumped the fascists in the trash of history
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Like the punks and the rastas in the Seventies
No Pasaran! No Pasaran!
We fough the racists on the streets
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Just like the people of Dagenham
No Pasaran! No Pasaran!
We ran the fascists out of our town
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Hope not hate! Hope not hate!
We came in our hundreds in the name of hope not hate
And we defeated the enemy at the gate
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

Victory! Victory!
We came in our hundreds and we won a victory
And we dumped the fascists in the trash of history
And we’ll do it again tomorrow

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