From the playground to the wasteground
Hope ends at 17 -
Sweeping floors and filling shelves
Forced into government schemes -
11 years spent to dig out ditches,
Forget your schoolday dreams -
Guarantees and lie-filled speeches,
But nothings what it seems -
Qualified and patronised and with everything to lose.
No choice or chance for the future
The rich enjoy less tax -
Dress the girls in pretty pink
The shit goes to the blacks
A generation's heart torn out
And covered up the facts
The only thing they'll understand
Is a wall against their backs
The only hope now left for those - with everything to lose.

In desperation empty eyes,
Signed up and thrown away -
There's drugs replacing dignity,
The short sharp shock repaid -
There'll be no money if you dare to question
Working the Tory way -
The truth is up there carved in stone,
Where 21 dead now lay -
A family's loss for a few pounds saved -
With everything to lose.

Copyright: Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group
Writer(s): PAUL JOHN WELLER, STEVEN DOUGLAS WHITE