Is it worth it?
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy’s birthday

It’s just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children, soon we’ll be shipbuilding

Well I ask you
The boy said ‘Dad, they’re going to take me to task
But I’ll be home by Christmas

It’s just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The results of their shipbuilding

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

It’s just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram for a picture postcard
Within weeks they’ll be reopening the shipyard
And notifying the next of kin
Once again

It’s all we’re skilled in
We will be shipbuilding

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

Shipbuilding is avaliable on the album His-Greatest-Misses and Ep’s.

The song Shipbuilding was written during the Falklands War of 1982 by music composer and producer Clive Langer for Robert Wyatt. The lyrics is written by Elvis Costello, who later recorded his own version of the song.

According to the Wikipedia entry, Costello’s lyrics discuss the contradiction of the war bringing back prosperity to traditional shipbuilding areas Liverpool, North East England (Cammell Laird) and Belfast (Harland and Wolff) to build new ships to replace those being sunk in the war, whilst also sending off the sons of these areas to fight and, potentially, lose their lives in those same ships.