Bm A Bm A
    Bm                               A
Our history speaks in thunder from a thousand village halls
   Bm                                A
In blood and sweat and sacrifice, in honouring every call
       Bm                                  A
So the forces gathered against the thorn a-piercing in their side
  Bm                                  A   
A brave new world is beckoning so the older world must die.

Bm A Bm A
       Bm                              A
In the offices of the city, at all the tables of oak and power
    Bm                                    A
The snares are laid and baited for the approaching of the hour
  Bm                             A
A hundred justifications and the presses are ready to roll
    Bm                              A
The gateways to the nation they are firmly under control

Chorus
Bm                    A
On, on, on, cried the leaders at the back
        Bm                      
We went galloping down the blackened hills
    A
And into the gaping trap
    Em                                      D
The bridges are burnt behind us and there's waiting guns ahead
F#                 G                    Bm       D  G  Bm  D  G
Into the valley of death rode the brave hundreds

   Bm                                  A
We called for some assistance from the friends that we had known
    Bm                    A
But this is the 1980s and we were on our own
   Bm                        A
We never felt like heroes or martyrs to a cause
     Bm                         A
Just battle-weary soldiers in a bloody civil war

Chorus

    C#m
The massacre now is over and the order new enshrined
        A  
While a quarter of the nation are abandoned far behind
    C#m                                             
The leaders offer the cliche words, so righteous in defeat
    A
But no one needs morality when there isn't enough to eat
    Ebm
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 glass
                                                 D
When we think of the charge of this brigade, the severing of the past

Chorus