James Keelaghan - Stonecutter lyrics

If you're down by Queen and Britain Streets You'll find Stonecutters' Lane The house that my grandfather built, where I was born and raised My granddad was a mason, my father in his time My time came I signed as an apprentice lad The early 1900s were a rich, fat afternoon We were cuttin' stone like demons No work was done too soon We were hired out on seven jobs, so to take the slack Put out advertisements for apprentice lads Never find a better crew They knew what work was Cornices and lintels They laid stone like they were gods Hear the hammers ring out, think it was a song August 1914 in the sultry summer heat Took a vote in Ottawa The drums began to beat Honor glory also then, the story doesn't change To a man they all enlisted my apprentice lads I couldn't say that I agree 'Cause I knew what war was It was worker k**in' worker for some politician's cause Off to battle they all marched, ga**ed in that Cambrai Dogs of war, done for my apprentice lads 1916 fire broke out, Parliament was razed A call went out for masons to rebuild and to relay It was the contract of a lifetime, the House upon the hill So they came out from Vancouver, they came down from Montreal Master masons, every one, they were answering their call There was no man under 30, or man whose work I didn't know The fields of France had swallowed the apprentice lads It's 1921 now, I'm standing at the peak About to cap the Peace Tower off, there's no one here can speak The mortar for that stone we mixed, the clay from Flanders' fields, We laid it in its place for those apprentice lads Yeah we laid in its place for those apprentice lads.