[Intro] [staccato strings, snare drum march rhythm] [Verse 1] [rapid male narration] Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from the girl and the boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or visit relations, And applications for situations, And timid lovers' declarations, And gossip, gossip from all the nations, News circumstantial, news financial, Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in, Letters with faces scrawled in the margin, Letters from uncles, cousins and aunts, Letters to Scotland from the South of France, Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands, Notes from overseas to Hebrides, Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring, The cold and official and the heart's outpouring, Clever, stupid, short and long, The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong. [Verse 2] Passing the shunter intent on its toil, moving the coke and the coal and the oil. Girders for bridges, plastic for fridges. Bricks for the site are required by tonight. Grimy and grey is the engine's reflection, down to the docks for the metal collection. Passenger trains full of commuters, bound for the office to work in computers. The teacher, the doctor, the actor in farce, the typist, the banker, the judge in first class. Reading The Times with the crossword to do, returning at night on the six forty-two. [orchestral swell, final snare roll]
