GATES OF GLORY

GATES OF GLORY

Jack Storey sat in his easy chair, shades of steam in his thin white hair,
Eighty-one years and he looked much older, his head bent sideways over his shoulder;
There weren't no smile on his worn old face, it belonged to another time and place,
Where home was a cab made of rivets and steel, and love was a feelin' for machines on wheels.
He'd worked on the footplate for forty long years, he remembered the sweat and he remembered the tears,
And he remembered the thrill of just being alive, with a full head of steam on an old Black Five;
And he drove the Pacifics and the Jubilee, and an old coal-tank 0-6-2 T,
And King George the Fifth in her Brunswick Green, was the finest train he'd ever seen.
He'd rattle her down the Hereford Line, scream through Wooferton bang on time,
Throttle pulled back and her whistle wide, there weren't much doubt he was there for the ride;
Chained like a prisoner to the thrill of speed, now at eighty-one years he's still not free,
And his trains are ghosts and right or wrong, he'll ride 'em hard 'til he's dead and gone.

(Chorus)... Lord the track's not laid, and there's no such grade,
That'll stop what he's gonna do;
So keep the Gates of Glory open wide for Jack Storey,
When his 'King' comes thundering through.

Old Jack loved trains since the year '03, when the top of his head reached his Daddy's knee,
He'd no time for toys and all that he knew, was the days were long & the trains were too;
And he'd no other loves, no other fun, 'cept for some girl up in Darlington,
He'd no time for romance, no time for dreams, though one old fireman said her name was Jean.
Still he sits in that easy chair, the fire burns low but his eyes still stare,
Deep in the embers at something he's seen, that's long and coloured in Brunswick Green;
And it flies through his mind like a ghostly demon, pawin' the ground, smokin' & steamin',
And he thinks of the years and miles he's done, and the girl he knew in Darlington.
Years and miles and trains flash by, and time's a bitch makes old men cry,
And young girls' faces stand between, the things that were and might have been;
And his story's over, it's all been told, the fire's gone out and the room's gone cold,
And that big green train's in the breaker's shed, a new day's born and old Jack's dead.

(Chorus)... Lord the track's not laid, and there's no such grade,
That'll stop what he's gonna do;
So keep the Gates of Glory open wide for Jack Storey,
When his 'King' comes thundering through.

(Words & Music by RAYMOND WRIGHT)