There
Ewan MacColl Lyrics

She walks in the cold dark hour before the morning
She walks in the dawnless dawn

The hour when wounded night begins to bleed
Morning is the birth of day and the death of night

Stands at the back of the patient queue
She stands at the back of the line, waiting dutifully

The silent almost sweeping queue
She stands in a queue where people hardly speak, but just shuffle along

Seein' no-one and not being seen
She sees no one and no one sees her

Working shoes are wrapped in working apron
Her shoes are scuffed and her clothes stained from her work

Rolled in an oilcloth bag across her knees
She carries her work clothes in a bag and rests it on her knees

The swaying tremor soaks the morning
Her swaying as she walks makes her feel the cold of the dawn

Blue grey steely day is dawning
The day is grey and dull

Draining the last few dregs of sleep away
She's up early enough to wake up and go to work, despite a lack of sleep

Over the bridge and the writhing foul black water
She crosses a bridge over polluted, unpleasant water

Down through empty corridors of stone
She walks down empty corridors made of stone, devoid of life

Each of the blind glass walls she passes
She passes by walls of glass that reflect her image

Shows her twin in sudden flashes
The glass reflects her likeness back to her

Which is the mirror image, which is real?
She wonders which is the true image of herself

Crouching hooded gods of word and number?
She imagines gods made of words and numbers watching over her

Accept her bent-backed homage as their due
She feels as though her work is worship to the gods of numbers and words

The buckets steam like incense coils
The steam coming from the cleaning solution looks like incense burning

Around the endless floor she toils
She works tirelessly on the same floor every day

Cleaning the same white sweep each day anew
Every day, she cleans the same white floor, starting again from the beginning

Glistening sheen of new-washed floors is fading
The floors she just cleaned are getting dirty again

There where office clocks are marking time
She cleans in an office where the clocks mark the minutes of the day

Night's black tide has ebbed away
The darkness of the night is being replaced by daylight

By cliffs of glass awash with day
She watches the glass buildings come alive as the day begins

She hurries from her labours still unseen
She finishes her work and leaves, unnoticed by her colleagues

He who lies besides her does not see her
Her partner, sleeping beside her, doesn't fully understand her struggles

Nor does the child who once lay at her breast
Her child, no longer breastfed, also doesn't see the difficult life she leads

The shroud of self-denial covers
She hides her struggles behind a facade of strength and resilience

Eager girl and tender lover
She was once an eager girl and a tender lover, but that person is gone now

Only the faded servant now is left
She is now just a servant, faded and worn from the struggles of her life

How could it be that no-one saw her drowning
Her suffering was not noticed until it was too late

How did we come to be so unaware
We've become so consumed by our own lives that we've forgotten to look around us

At what point did she cease to be her
At some point, she lost her true self

When did we cease to look and see her
We stopped paying attention to her and her struggles

How is it no-one knew she was there
She was invisible to the world around her, unnoticed until it was too late