Lyrics Classic Northern Diversions - Jackie Leven

I took a train out of Leeds in the smear and stain
I saw the city pass by in the shuffling rain

I'm in Huddersfield drinking in the slubber's arms
And walked through the slush by broken farms
Where huddling sheep are turning grey
In the cold light of a nothing day

It took me fifty long years just to work out
That because I was angry didn't mean I was right
Now I'm sitting in a bar alone
With the jukebox playing a terrible song
The bartender says I see it's you again
I been drinking deep from a jar of pain

I remember once I went home like this
I had my mother in tears as I felt her kiss
Now my mother is heavenbound
And her body lies in unmarked ground

In every heart in every home
There's a dying man who lives alone
He close the door and he turn away
And the tide rushes in on a fatal shore

I can never get too close to coal
With a glass in my hand and the ember's crack
But the fire's gone out and the chimney's closed
And there's a round jeer sticking on my back

I took a train out of Leeds in the smear and stain
I saw the city pass by in the shuffling rain

And with Chimney's leaning to the sea
I got the salt of Sunderland creasing me
I took a jar of pain to the soaking field
And to the lonely seawall inn south shields

If I was a man which I am not
Standing in the last of rotten snow
I'd fall on my knees and I'd cry out loud
To the snowy river and the icy flow

I took a train out of Leeds in the smear and stain
I saw the city pass by in the shuffling rain