Only Doing Their Job lyrics

If thereʼs anyone that has a moment to spare

and can give undivided attention,

Iʼd be grateful if youʼd give a minute or two

and consider some points I would mention.

There are slanderous tongues ever ready to wrong

and murder the fine reputation

of the lads with big feet who, by pounding the beat,

are protecting the peace of the nation.

There are short-sighted folks who insist that these blokes

are just uniformed masters of thuggery;

there can be no dispute: if they didnʼt put the boot in,

the country would soon go to buggery.

So try and keep calm when theyʼre twisting your arm

or planting a fist in your gob;

when theyʼre giving you hell in a cold prison cell,

theyʼre only just doing their job.

When Hitler & Co. were running the show,

assisted by Germanyʼs coppers,

if a nose was too big or a mind was too active

its owner was sure of the chopper.

Socialists, Communists, Jews and trade unionists

landed up dead or in quod;

and the police were in there, of course doing their share,

ah, but they were just doing their job.

Il Duce — the bully — and Franco — his cully —1

both loaded their country with chains,

and in the front ranks of these two mountebanks

were the police of both Italy and Spain.

In South Africa, El Salvador, Guatemala,2

where they call working people ‟the mob”,

the screams and the yells from the punishment cells

show the police are just doing their job.

If youʼre black or just brown; if youʼre jobless and down;

if you speak for a world which is saner;

if you stand up and fight for whatʼs yours by right;

if youʼre an anti-nuclear campaigner:

remember the chap in the comical hat

is one of humanityʼs crosses;

wherever thereʼs trouble, whatever the struggle,

heʼll be on the side of the bosses.

1. ‟Il Duce” (lit. ‟the leader”) Benito Mussolini was Italy’s dictator in the years 1922-1943.

Francisco Franco was Spain’s dictator in the years 1936-1975.2. See:

apartheid regime in South Africa

civil war in El Salvador

civil war in Guatemala

• Artist:Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger