Union Songs

The Workers' Song

A Song by Ed Pickford©Ed Picford

Come all of you workers
Who toil night and day
By hand and by brain
To earn your pay
Who for centuries long past
For no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries
And counted your dead

In the factories and mills,
In the shipyards and mines
We've often been told
To keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed,
They've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch
Our pride they have robbed

But when the sky darkens
And the prospect is war
Who's given a gun
And then pushed to the fore
And expected to die
For the land of our birth
When we've never owned
One handful of earth?

We're the first ones to starve
The first ones to die
The first ones in line
For that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last
When the cream is shared out
For the worker is working
When the fat cat's about

All of these things
The worker has done
From tilling the fields
To carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough
Since time first began
And always expected
To carry the can

Notes

Many thanks to Ed Pickford for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection.

Ed writes:
'Recorded by Dick Gaughan on his iconic 1981 album ‘Handful of Earth’. Dick’s arrangement of the song is typically generous. This song has been recorded from Scotland to Australia. Must give a mention to ‘The Dropkick Murphys’ of Boston USA who recorded this song on their CD ‘Blackout’. A great group'.

Find more Ed Pickford songs on this site.

Visit Ed Pickford's website at http://www.ed-pickford.co.uk/

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union songs..........a selection by mark gregory