Palaces of Gold

If the sons of company directors
And the judges' private daughters
Had to got to school in a slum school
Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley
Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry
With a view onto slag heaps and stagnant pools
Had to file through corridors grey with age
And play in a crack-pot concrete cage

Buttons would be pressed
Rules would be broken
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold

If prime ministers and advertising executives
Royal personages and bank managers' wives
Had to live out their lives in dark rooms
Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers
Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars
In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs
Had to bring up their children and watch them grow
In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow

Buttons would be pressed
Rules would be broken
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold

I'm not suggesting any sort of plot
Everyone knows, there's not
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don't want to be buried alive by slagheaps
Pitfalls and damp walls and rat traps and dead streets
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge's private daughter

Buttons will be pressed
Rules will be broken
Strings will be pulled
And magic words spoken
Invisible fingers will mould
Palaces of gold