New Model Army - The Charge lyrics

Our history speaks in thunder from a thousand village halls In blood and sweat and sacrifice, in honouring every call So the forces gathered against the thorn a-piercing in their side A 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 Ch: On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back We went galloping 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 d**h rode the brave hundreds We called for some a**istance 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 battle-weary soldiers in a bloody civil war The ma**acre now is over and the order new enshrined While a quarter of the nation are abandoned far behind Their leaders offer the cliché words, so righteous in defeat But no one 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 glimpse at a piece of the cake We only cry in private here behind the shuttered gla** When we think of the charge of this brigade, the severing of the past Ch: On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back We went galloping 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 d**h rode the brave hundreds