Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed SpAd?
Oh, where have you been, my eager young lad?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve hundred pointless quangos
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six moribund ministries
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad offices
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead committees
I’ve been ten thousand miles in lost worthy intentions
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, (yes, I heard you the first time) it’s a hard, and it’s a hard (now it’s getting indecent)
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed SpAd?
Oh, what did you see, my eager young lad?
I saw a newborn policy with wild wolves all around it
I saw trillion-dollar bills lying on the street to be picked up
I saw an FDA branch with bile that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with no purpose in meeting
I saw a career ladder open to no one
I saw ten thousand talkers who knew only cliché
I saw powers to cancel in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard – rain’s a-gonna fall
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed SpAd?
And what did you hear, my eager young lad?
I heard a branch chairman who roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of the public who could drown the whole state
Heard one hundred lobbyists whose hands were hidden
Heard ten thousand voters to whom nobody’s listenin’.
Heard one person ask, I heard many people scornin’
Heard the sound of a good idea dead in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the Cabinet Room
And it’s a hard – rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed SpAd?
Who did you meet, my eager young lad?
I met a Permanent Secretary flogging a dead horse
I met an old Tory who talked like a Red
I met a young woman scolded for thinking
I met a junior assistant, demanding I wear a rainbow
I met one manager promoted for failure
I met another manager demoted for tryin’
And it’s a hard – rain’s a-gonna fall
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed SpAd?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my eager young lad?
I’m a-goin’ back out to make the rain fall
I’ll walk through depths of the most wasteful offices
Where the people are busy but their work is no value
Where mistakes of the past are poisonin’ their practice
Where the expected knighthood meets the cold face of sackin’
Where the executioner’s face is one they are seein’
Where workload is fiction, where souls are forgotten
Where red is the tape, where none is achievement
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And straight from the Cab’net Office all souls can see it
Then I’ll dry up the ocean of worthless bureaucrats
So they’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
