I was born back in Glasgow, in the year ’44,
Right on the back of the second world war;
The fighting continued, was then for survival,
Battleships and soldiers, broken and left, to dismantle.

The steel mills and shipyards, the mines and the pain,
Hard-grafting men with steel in their vein;
The beer and the whisky, killed more than the wars,
But it sure did numb, and hide lots of the scars.

The grime and the Gorbals, the fighting & killing,
Filth and the squalor, the disease and the dying;
A city of culture? Naw! Survival was the name of the game,
The war and the politics? Shucks, no, we were all to blame.

So back in Glasgow, in the year ’44,
On the back door of the second world war;
We grew with the heartache, the loss and the pain,
And we all sure promised, it’d never happen again.

(Tune: None)
(© James R. Hamilton, written, Saturday, 5th, November, 2005)