The Local

Thank fuck, it's Friday

We're not going home

Till we're singing "My Way"

Or "Come on Eileen" to our family down the phone

Long live the local

Wherever you roam

Times are hard for the hopeful

So long live the local

As a week of desperation lays thick upon the air

I watch a funeral congregation drown their sorrow in despair

The landlord pours me another pint

As the band murder "Sweet Caroline" again

I see a sea of generations and characters collide

Please leave the segregation and the class divide outside

For within these walls the people, both rich and poor are equal, my dear friends

Illuminated by the fruit machine, beneath an England flag

I watch "Dodgy Dave" sell stolen steak out of a Tesco bag

To the cabbies who abuse ya, if you dare order an Uber for a Ching

And the poor barmaid's only 17, she's paid minimum wage

For pouring pints and serving therapy, to loners twice her age

While the battered "all-the-timers" and the shattered nine-to-fivers form a choir and sing

Thank fuck, it's Friday

We're not going home

Till we're singing "My Way"

Or "Come on Eileen" to our family down the phone

Long live the local

Wherever you roam

Times are hard for the hopeful

So long live the local

Outside the vicar drinks with builders, ex-hooligans and ravers

I see the old girls from the bingo, smoking with the undertakers

While a hen-do on the breezers, and the get the badge in geezers, share a blunt

There's shattered glass beneath a sign, that reads "Please respect the neighbors"

When a rollock in a Rolex on the racket has a straightener

He thinks he's Tyson Fury but he's knocked out prematurely

What a cunt

This is a home away from home for some

Leave your troubles at the door

Where the roughest of the scum become the richest of the poor

We're singing, thank fuck, it's Friday

We're not going home

Till we're singing "My Way"

Or "Come on Eileen" to our family down the phone

Long live the local

Wherever you roam

Times are hard for the hopeful

So long live the local

La la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la, long live the local

La la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la la la, long live the local

From every wake, to every wedding, every "Happy Birthday" sung

Every lock-in with the landlord, once the last order bells rung

My first bump at the urinal, my first heartbreaking cup final spent in tears

From the cradle, to the grave

From your first drink, to your last

I've watched love and life and loss

Dreamt of the future, mourned the past

From my sad days, to my bad days

To my best I've ever had days

I was here