Songtext Sweetheart on the barricade Richard Thompson

Sweetheart on the barricade

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