If you're down by Queen and Briton's Streets, you'll find Stonecutter's Lane
The house that my grandfather built, where I was born and raised
My grandad was a mason, my father in his time
When my time came I signed as an apprentice lad
Early 1900's were a rich fat afternoon
We were cutt'n stone like demons, no work was done too soon
We were hired out on seven jobs, and so to take the slack
We put out advertisements for apprentice lads
You'd 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, you'd think it was a song
August 1914, in the sulty summer heat
They took a vote on Ottawa, and the drums began to beat
Honor, glory, us or them. the story doesn't change
To a man they all enlisted my apprentice lads
I couldn't say that I agreed, because I knew what war was
It was worker killing worker for some politician's cause
But off to battle they all marched, and gassed them at Cambrai
The dogs of war had done for my apprentice lads
1916 fire broke out, and Parliament was razed
A call went out for masons to rebuild and to relay
It was the contract of a lifetime
A house upon the hill
So they came out from Vancouver, they came down from Montreal
Master masons, every one. They were answering their call
There was no man under thirty, no man whose work I didn't know
The fields of France had swallowed the apprentice lads
It's 1921 now, I'm standing at the peek
About the cap the Peace Tower off, there's no one here can speak
The mortar for that stone we mixed, the clay from Flander's Fields
We laid it in its place for those apprentice lads
Yeah, we laid it in its place for those apprentice lads
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