Friday Evening

LYRICS

It’s Friday evening at the steel plant  
Smile on my face and blood on my hands
It’s quitting time but we’ve got plans —
The Sydney Forum with the Minglewood Band
I’m getting drunk because I’ve earned it man
Picking fights with those out of town scabs
And we’ll make the most of it while we can
Because sooner or later this will all come to an end 

The future ain’t so hot, I know
I don’t give a damn if you told me so
The joke is on you, I always knew the truth.

Ain’t no two ways around it with one foot on the ground
It’s just a matter of time before the last work whistle sounds
It don’t matter much but it means a lot
These are the days that we’ll talk about
So I’ll hop in the truck with my lunch box
And drive back home where the work is forgotten

And I’ll be sure
To put a patch on the front porch screen door
When spring rolls around we’ll have nothing to do anyhow.

Monday comes
We head back to work like a pack of loyal dogs
The blast furnace hums
The memories of the songs that I learned when I was young
But I ain’t so young anymore

Things have changed and the plant is gone
So are my friends that it claimed too young
Not much to do but sit on the step
Watch seasons pass with each shallow breath
My small pension don’t mean much to me
What good is money without dignity

And you can be sure it will never get back to the way it was before
This town is just a memory.

By Ian MacDougall

About Ian MacDougall

Ian MacDougall holds a strange and unassuming presence on the East Coast musical landscape. Fronting his internationally acclaimed, musically obese, Cape Breton institution The Tom Fun Orchestra, Ian has spent years touring around the world bringing epic anthems and odes to packed clubs, massive festivals and empty taverns. Outside of the successes and excesses of Tom Fun, Ian has developed a catalogue of songs that read like a hazy surrealist commentary of life and lure on Cape Breton Island. By himself, these songs stand truly engaging. His complicated musical lulls of ennuiand frustration find solace in triumphant melodies of reckless elation. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s something else entirely.