Flash, bang and then it was gone

 Flash, bang and then it was gone

Speeding round the corner

Along the tramlines

Past flashing glass windows

Leaving nothing behind

History is a shadow

A blast from the past

Then the burst fireworks

Explode above

Flash, bang and then it was gone

Manchester is full of history

From Peterloo to Pankhurst

They're throwing themselves

Across picket lines and into the arms

Of the law

Protesters standing their ground

Trampled by the hooves of progress

But the city is on fire tonight

As the celestial sky's process

Flash, bang and then it is gone

Manchester in flashes

In snatches and photographs

In the meaning behind the bronze statues

Still standing in memory of the past

And the streets of heat are burning

The people with their busy feet

The pages of history are turning

And the fires are raging in the building's heart

In flashes, and bangs, and then it is gone

(and smouldering lives on)

See the politicians talk

In the old railway station

In flashes and bangs and then he is gone

And the crowd rise up onto their feet

In applause

The explosion of clapping, thunderous roars

Of rockets and planes dropping bombs in the wars

In flashes and bangs and then it is gone

And still left standing the embers are smouldering

And handing the burning coals through members

who are shouldering the blame in parliament

And others who are naming the culprits in government

In finger pointing and wagging, staking claims

To ground that is burning, imperial empires slipping

Further into the fires of a funeral pyre

In flashes, in bangs and then it is gone