Fairfield Crane - The Unthanks

I was born in the shadow of a fairfield crane

When the blast of a freighter’s horn was the very first sound that reached my

ear

On the morning I was born

As I lay and I listened to the shipyard sound coming out of the great unknown

And was sung to sleep by the mother tongue that was to be my own

And when I grew to be one year old I heard the siren’s scream

As the city watched in the blacked out night

A wandering search light’s beam

And when at last I awoke and rose to my first day of peace

For I’d learned that the battle to stay alive

Was never going to sea