///*****/// [Intro] A whistle that does not blow Wind in an empty shed [Verse 1] My grandfather poured steel here For thirty-seven years And my father took his lunch pail Through the very same grey gate And I was going to be the third And I had the boots and all And in nineteen eighty-two they came And they nailed it to the wall And two thousand of us stood there In the parking lot at noon Holding papers we could not read Underneath a midday moon [Pre-Chorus] And they said it was the market And they said it was the times And a word like that is easy When it is not your life [Chorus] Now it is a cathedral of rust With the pigeons in the beams And the sunlight coming sideways Through a roof of broken dreams And I walk down here on Sundays Like a man who lost his faith In a cathedral of rust Where my whole family prayed A cathedral of rust [Verse 2] The Kowalskis went to Texas And the Brennans went to hell And Dave who ran the union Has a bar he cannot sell And the high street lost its butcher And the butcher lost his son And the boys who stayed have nothing And the boys who left have none And they told us to retrain Into something that they'd name And there was nothing there to train for And they knew it all the same [Pre-Chorus] But we built the bridges over And we built the rails beneath And there is not a thing in this whole country That we did not help to keep [Chorus] Now it is a cathedral of rust With the pigeons in the beams And the sunlight coming sideways Through a roof of broken dreams And I walk down here on Sundays Like a man who lost his faith In a cathedral of rust Where my whole family prayed A cathedral of rust [Verse 3] My daughter does not know it And I do not think she should She works in something digital And she is very very good And she asks me why I go down there To a place that is not there And I do not have the language And I say I like the air But I go to feel it standing And I go to hear it hum And I go to tell my father That his boy has carried on [Pre-Chorus] And the rust is not a ruin And the rust is not a shame It is the memory of fire That refuses to explain [Bridge] So do not put up a plaque for us And do not sing us as the dead We are working in the mornings And we are getting people fed And the mill is in our shoulders And it never once went dead [Guitar Solo] [Final Chorus] So here is to the cathedral of rust And the pigeons in the beams And the sunlight coming sideways Through a roof of stubborn dreams And I walk down here on Sundays Like a man who kept his faith In a cathedral of rust Where my whole family prayed A cathedral of rust [Coda] Let it stand there in the weather Let the ivy have the stair Let it be the biggest headstone That a working town could bear And when they finally pull it over For a warehouse or a store Put a handful in your pocket And walk out through the door [Outro] A whistle that does not blow Wind in an empty shed And a man who keeps on going And the fire in his head
