Forth Bridge Lament
This AI generated song remembers the the death of a 13 year old boy on the construction of the Forth Bridge and the men who suffered decompression sickness while working in the pressurised caissons to construct the underwater foundations. The lyrics, which initially contained Scots dialect words (at my prompting), were modified, extended and rearranged by me to be more historically accurate and make more sense. I had initially wanted this song to be sung in a Scottish accent by the voice of a powerful female contralto singer, however Suno version 5 only delivered a ‘thin’ breathy output. Think of 🙁 Barbie singing! The image was generated in Nano Banana using several text prompts and a modern image. (see the location rendered in 3D on Google Maps)
Lyrics
The Prince has come to open the brig,
While some of the locals dance a jig.
The flags are flying on Queensferry shore,
And the great iron monster, he gives a roar.
They cheer for Fowler, they cheer for Arrol,
They dance to the fiddle and drink from the barrel.
But I sit alone by the fire’s dying light,
For my Davie won’t come to his supper tonight.
Oh, build it high, and rivet it tight,
Paint it with oxide, red as the bite.
You’ve spanned the Forth with a ribbon of steel,
But you’ve broken the hearts that you cannot heal.
Fifty-seven men gone, so the papers all say,
But I know the price that the widows must pay.
My Davie was wee, just thirteen years old,
A rivet-catch lad, keeps out of the cold.
He’d catch the red iron in his bucket of ash,
Till the timber gave way with a terrible crash.
A hundred feet down to the cold waters deep,
Now the Forth rocks my child in an eternal sleep.
Just a boy in a cap, with a smile on his face,
One less to feed as we say our grace.
Oh, build it high, and rivet it tight,
Paint it with oxide, red as the bite.
You’ve spanned the Forth with a ribbon of steel,
But you’ve broken the hearts that cannot heal.
Big Tam was a sinker, a stranger to fear,
He worked in the caisson for many a year.
Down in the mud where the air is so thick,
It twists up your joints and it makes a man sick.
He came up too fast at the end o’ the day
And the “Bends” took his legs for the sake of the pay,
Now he sits in the chair, and he stares at the rain,
While the trains rumble over the source o’ his pain.
So blow your pipes and beat on your drum,
The marvel of Scotland, the future has come.
But when the train crosses that lattice so high,
I hear not the wheels, nor the curlew’s cry.
For the iron is cold, and the water is grey,
And the shadows are long on the Firth today.
Aye, the bridge it will stand while the centuries pass,
But it stands on the bones of the working class.
Red paint, Red paint at the end of the day
An’ a forgotten we laddie who will never stray
Oh, build it high, and rivet it tight,
Paint it with oxide, red as the bite.
You’ve spanned the Forth with a ribbon of steel,
But you’ve broken the hearts that cannot heal.