Hey now Tommy have you got a new shirt / is it the colour of fine bright blue? / Has your mother sent you off to your school / from the street with a pretty view?

Shall we wrestle in the old school yard / like the other children do? / We can scuff your shoes, you can tear your hands / and I’ll rip that shirt off you

Hey now Tommy since you moved away / they’ve taken our town and they’ve made it new / And now there stands a chemical plant / where the cherry orchard grew

And I married Lucy from the back of our class / who once wrote letters to you / And we’ve got kids and we send them to school / from the street with a pretty view

Oh, in your shirt of blue / Oh, in your shirt of blue

Maybe Tommy we grew up too quick / from the fields where the flowers grow / From a butterfly stick to a baton and a brick / you changed uniforms far too soon

Hey there Tommy shall we meet again / in the morning wet with dew? / Me at the gates of the colliery / you in your shirt of blue

Shall we wrestle in the muddy patch / like the other poor miners do? / We can scuff our boots, we can tear our hands / and I will rip that shirt off you

Oh, in your shirt of blue / Oh, in your shirt of blue

Maybe Tommy we grew up too quick / from the fields where the flowers grow / From a butterfly stick to a baton and a brick / you changed uniforms far too soon

‎Oh, in your shirt of blue…

[By Paul Simmonds © Mca Inc., 1986]