Sweetheart On The Barricade - Richard Thompson, Danny Thompson

They closed up the sooty gates of Ayres and Company

We stood on the picket line, my Jennifer and me We blocked the street, now the lorries come and turn about

There’s nothing getting in there and there’s nothing getting out

Oh, she’s just a tender thing

She’s risking life and limb

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

My heart it skips a beat

There’ll be fighting in the street

But hungry folk forget to be afraid

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

And here come the managers to hit us on the sly

And tinpot generals with glory in their eyes

Owners, moaners, Judases and Janes

But righteousness is in our eyes, we’ve got no time for games

In her manner she is mild

And fairly just a child

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

For a fair wage in her hand

The equal of a man

She’ll stand front rank in the parade

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

She’s running leaflets through the alley

She’s passing hymn books at the rally

Halleluiah!

Friends and neighbours, won’t you join the cause

Drill it in the tiny minds of them that make the laws

That workers are human, we’re really just the same

We’ve got to have the nourishment to fill a human frame

Oh, we’re people not a mob

And we only wants a job

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

We’ve had it up to here

Too numb to feel the fear

My sweetheart’s on the barricade

My heart it skips a beat

There’ll be fighting in the street

My sweetheart’s on the barricade