Building Up And Tearing England Down

Building Up And Tearing England Down - Donal Lunny

I've won a hero's name

With McAlpine and Costain

With Fitzpatrick Murphy Ashe

And Wimpey's gang

I've been often on the road

On my way to draw the dole

When there's nothing left

To do for Sir John Laing

Now I used to think that God

Made the mixer pick and hod

So that Paddy might know hell above the ground

I've had gangers big

And tough tell me tear it all out rough

When you're building up and tearing England down

In a tunnel underground a young Limerick man was found

He was built into the new Victoria Line

When the pouring gang had past sticking

Through the concrete cast

Was the face of little Charlie Joe Devine

And the ganger man McGurk big Paddy ate the work

When the gas main burst

And he flew off the ground

Oh they swear he said Don't slack

I'll not be here until I'm back

Keep on building up and tearing England down

I was on the shuttering dam

On the day that Jack McCann

Got the better of his stammer in a week

He fell from the shuttering dam

And that poro old stuttering man

He was never ever more inclined to speak

And I saw old Balls McColl with a big flyover fall

Into a concrete mixer spinning round

Through it wasn't his intent

He got a fine head of cement

When he was building up and tearing England down

I remember Carrier Jack with his hod upon his back

How he swore he'd one day set the world on fire

But his face they've never seen

Since his shovel it cut clean

Through the middle of a big high tension wire

Oh the more like Robin Hood

Well he wrung trough Cricklewood

Or dance around the pubs in Camdon Town

Oh but let no man complain

Old Pad' could die in shame

When he's building up and tearing England down

So come all you navvy's bold

Do not think that English gold

Is just waiting to be taken from each sod

By the likes of you and me could never get the O B E

Or a knighthood for good service to the hod

It's the concrete master race

That would keep you in your place

And a ganger man to kick you to the ground

If you ever try to take part of what the bosses made

When you're building up and tearing England down