There's No Place I'd Rather Be

There’s nowhere I’d rather be  
Than inland, far from sea 
In the lost paradise
Of the Black Country 
Replenished by the urban heat 
Upon these streets so obsolete 
 
But when I walk the old coal road 
Once home to thriving industry 
In the midst of aching winter cold 
I see the buildings standing dismally 
 
And the houses born of times of war 
They now belong to the helpless poor 
But their will is worth its weight in gold 
For their iron spirit will never grow old 
 
And as I approached the underpass 
I saw graffiti scrawled as bold as brass: 

Welcome to Horseley Fields, 
It’s full of whores and steel 
It may be vast in ghastliness, 
But it’s devastatingly real.