"Sittin' in the morning sun
I'll be sittin' when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
And watchin' them roll out again

Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching my time slip away
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time"

The people who surround me are like
Characters on a plane
In some '70s disaster movie
Whose roles they can't explain

But whether nuns, old men or doctors
They all need a part to play
Just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

They're closing the doors of the stores now
In the malls that sprawl our land
On the sites of docks and steelworks
On pits, on shifting sands
We've been living on severance pay
Watching a decade slip away
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
Sitting on the dock of the abyss!! wasting time!

The dark satanic call centres
The credit check control
The families of the miners burning
Imported foreign coal
From places where today
Human life is pissed away
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Please tell me what to do!
What do all the flashing lights mean?
This ball that keeps on going round?
"MALFUNCTION" flashing on the screen!

Sitting on the dock of the abyss!!

Lost in the city's jargon
We cease to understand
The systems that we live in
I can't even lend a hand
As it spirals out of control
Sucks us into the black hole
Sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
But a whole new generation
Might rip up what we've done
Without the racism or gluttony
Without the hatred that we've spun
They'll curse us all for centuries
For what we threw away
Just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time