The Cloud Factory Songtext
von June Tabor

My father worked in the cloud factory
He′d come home wreathed in dreams each day
My mother took his cloudy clothes
To wash the smell of dreams away
She'd scold and say, "You and your dreams
They′re just for kids, or fools like you"
But father he'd just wink his eye
And smile and say, "Are you sure that's true?"
My mother thought him fanciful
She used to chide him all the while
But me, I thought him wonderful
I′d do anything just to see him smile
I used to hear him singing low
His words are with me to this day
"You have to hold on to your dreams
Or else they simply slip away"
My father taught me how to sing
Sang that dreams are everything
Can′t be bought and can't be sold
More than silver, more than gold


The last time I saw him ill and dying
Was the only time I saw him cry
Too late for dreams to come true now
As he watched his last cloud rolling by
Back home she opened windows wide
And out the dreams flew, strand by strand
Till all but one had flown away
I caught and kept it in my hand
My mother doesn′t do much lately
No more clouds to clear away
And since they closed the factory down
No dreams seem to drift this way
I caught her sitting alone and still
At first I thought her fast asleep
But father's coat was in her lap
Around her feet the dreams lay deep
She said, "He taught me how to sing
To sing that dreams are everything
Can′t be bought and can't be sold
More than silver, more than gold"
Sometimes I walk by the disused factory
And gaze into the empty sky
And if I let the fancy lead me
A dream or two comes drifting by
I′ll teach my children how to sing
To sing that dreams are everything
Can't be bought and can't be sold
More than silver, more than gold
My father taught me how to sing
To sing that dreams are everything
Can′t be bought and can′t be sold
More than silver, more than gold