Noodley goodness

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jehosefatz  and me. Mostly him.

"Stonecutter"
- James Keelaghan

If you're down by Queen and Britain streets, you'll find Stonecutter's Lane
And the house that my grandfather built, where I was born and raised
My granddad was a mason and my father in his prime
When my time came I signed as an apprentice lad

The early nineteen hundreds were a rich, fat afternoon
We were cutting stone like demons, no work was done too soon
Hired out on seven jobs so to take up the slack
We put out advertisements for apprentice lads

Refrain
You'd never find a better crew, they knew what work was
Cornices and lintels, they laid stone like they were gods
To hear the hammers ring out, their ring it was a song

Then in August 1914 in the sultry summer heat
They took a vote in Ottawa and the drums began to beat
Honor, glory, us-or-them, the stories never change
To a man they all enlisted, my apprentice lads

I can't say I agree with them, for I knew what war was
It was worker-killing work for some politician's cause
But off to battle they all marched they were gassed down at Cambrai
The gods of war had gone for my apprentice lads

Refrain
Then in nineteen-sixteen fire broke out and Parliament was razed
The call went up for masons to rebuild and to relay
It was the contract of a lifetime, the house upon the hill

They came out from Vancouver, came down from Montreal
Master masons every one, answering their call
But there was no man under thirty, no man who's work I didn't know
The fields of France had swallowed our apprentice lads

It's nineteen-twenty-one now and I'm standing at the peak
About to cap the Peace Tower off, but no man here can speak
For with the mortar on that stone we mixed clay from Flanders field
Then set it into place for our apprentice lads