Classic Northern Diversions Songtext / Lyric

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