James Keelaghan Stonecutter
If you're down by Queen and Britain Streets
You'll find Stonecutters Lane
The house that my grandfather built, where I was born and raised
My granddad was a mason, my father in his time
My time came I signed as an apprentice lad
The early 1900s were a rich, bad afternoon
We were cuttin' stone like demons
No work was done too soon
We were hired out on seven jobs, so to take the slack
Put out advertisements for apprentice lads
Never find a better crew
They knew what work was
Cornices and lintels
They laid stone like they were gods
Hear the hammers ring out, think it was a song
August 1914 in the sultry summer heat
Took a boat in Ottawa
The drums began to beat
Honor glory also then, the story doesn't change
To a man they all enlisted my apprentice lads
I couldn't say that I agree
'Cause I knew what war was
It was worker killin' worker for some politician's cause
Off to battle they all marched, gassed in that Cambrai
Dogs of war, done for my apprentice lads
1916 fire broke out, Parliament was razed
A call went out for masons to rebuild and to relay
It was the contract of a lifetime, the House upon the hill
So they came out from Vancouver, they came down from Montreal
Master masons everyone, they were answering their call
There was no man under 30, a man's work I didn't know
The fields of France had swallowed the apprentice lads
It's 1921 now, I'm standing at the peak
About to cap the Peace Tower off, there's no one here can speak
The mortar for that stone we mixed,the clay from Flanders fields
We laid it in its place for those apprentice lads
Yeah we laid in its place for those apprentice lads