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HE FADES AWAY
There's a man in my bed I used to love him
His kisses use to take my breath away
There's a man in my bed I hardly know him
As I wipe his face and hold his hand
and watch him as he slowly fades away
He fades away
Not like leaves that fall in autumn
Turning gold against the grey
He fades away
Like the blood stains on the pillow case
that I wash every day
He fades away
There's a man in my bed he's on a pension
though he's only 50 years of age
and the lawyers say we might get compensation
in the course of due procedure
but they wouldn't say for certain at this stage
He fades away...
He's not the only one who made the trip
So many years ago to work the Wittenoom Mine
So many young men old before there time
and dying slow they fade away
Wheezing bags of bones with lungs half clogged
and filled with clay
They fade away...
There's a man in my bed nobody told him
The cost of bring home his weekly pay
And when the courts decide how much they owe him
How will he spend his money as he lies in bed
and coughs his life away
He fades away...
There's a man in my bed I used to love him
His kisses use to take my breath away
There's a man in my bed I hardly know him
As I wipe his face and hold his hand
and watch him as he slowly fades away
Written by a Scot in Australia, Alistair Harlet
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Jist A Joiner
He never smoked and seldom spent
Worked a' the 'oors the good Lord sent
Oor kids were clever, we planned wi' elation
Their future lay in good education
He worked the yards, railway, corporation
Those were the days a working nation
The Red Road flats, the highest let
Are killing workers even yet
He'd come home tired, covered in dust
Ah'd moan an groan, fit tae bust
Nae washin' machine tae lighten ma load
Ah hated those flats in Barmulloch's Red Road
Don't tell me they didnae know
Asbestos kills - not fast - but slow
Hitler, may he roast in hell
Banned asbestos, he knew well
Even the doctors shrug and stutter
Asbestosis, a diagnosis they wull nutt utter
They put ma kids as well as me
In danger o' catching this maladie
He never complains, no need, no need,
Made o' sterner stuff, a dyin' breed
Ah lie awake an hear his pain
That bloody cough, again, again
My point is this, somebody knew
Too late for him, too late for you?
Catherine Hislop
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