Rain Steam & Speed

Paul Simmonds & The Men They Couldn't Hang

Powder hole, black as coal
Pack it tight, sound the call
Blow the rock, swing the pick
Spade and hand will shovel it

One man drills a powder-hole the colour of a bruise
One man sounds the bugle and another one lights the fuse
Blow up! Pick and shovel it! Carry the earth away
Brains and brawn with hammers drawn blasting through the clay

Rain is the cold
Steam is the burn
Speed is the way the world turns round

Draughtsmen and surveyors work at pegging out the shaft
Ten of us to breathe the dust, ten to do the graft
Underneath the Pennine range the bodies lie in racks
Forty miles of steel and tile follow in their tracks

Some men build a monument
Some men build a tomb
Some men move the world around
To give them breathing room
Some men carve a statue
Of Isambard Brunel
Some men carved a tunnel into hell

Soon they'll build a tunnel under England through to France
Will it make the tide run quicker? Will the flow of trade advance?
Underneath the waters there is limestone, chalk and sand
But coming up through virgin rock will be the human hand!

Powder hole, black as coal
Pack it tight, sound the call
Blow the rock, swing the pick
Spade and hand will shovel it

A powerful song about the dangerous business of mining deep tunnels. It was written by Paul Simmonds and The Men They Couldn't Hang before the Channel Tunnel was built. The song tells of great British engineering feats, and the achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

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