Union Songs
The Unknown Worker
A Song by John Warner©2010 John Warner
- [play]
Solidarity for ever, for the union makes us strong [solo, unaccompanied]
He has fallen from the scaffolding ten metres high,
He was crushed in a rockfall where the miners lie,
In any of the thousand ways that workers die,
And they've dug him a grave in the loam.
And his silent mates gathered on that day,
Awkward and sad to send him on his way,
But gruff and proud. hear the old man say,
"Right, comrades, let's sing him home."And we gather here in solidarity,
To make a cenotaph of memory
for the unknown fallen of industry,
Right, comrades, let's sing them home.They've died in the struggles that never cease,
From the bullets and batons of the thugs and police,
Of mercury, phosphorus and lung disease,
Right , comrades, let's sing them home.
They fell from the derricks on the heaving tide,
Under flags of convenience where the owners lied,
Crushed by container, crane or winch they died
Right , comrades, let's sing them home.And we gather here in solidarity ...
Where the furnace split with a deadly roar,
Where steam, steel and lime seared the cast house floor,
And families lost to the corporation law,
Right, comrades, lets sing them home.
Crushed by couplings on a shunting train,
Their last conscious minutes of brutal pain,
Dead in a boiler burst where nought remains,
Right comrades, lets sing them home.And we gather here in solidarity ...
Women who lost eyesight at the loom and spool,
Whose hands lost sensation in the typing pool,
Who were garbage flung aside when poverty was cruel,
Right, comrades, lets sing them home.
Pay them the homage that's ages overdue,
Sing them a union song that once they knew,
Rising like a thunder-cloud, white against blue,
Right, comrades, let's sing them homeAnd we gather here in solidarity,
To make a cenotaph of memory
for the unknown fallen of industry,
Right, comrades, let's sing them home.[repeat last line]
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run...
Notes
Many thanks to John Warner fr permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.
Visit John's website at http://www.folkjohnwarner.com
Find more John Warner songs on this site. Visit John on the web at: www.folkjohnwarner.com
union songs..........a selection by mark gregory