Union Songs

Honea Path

A Song by Matthew Grimm©Matthew Grimm 2010

- [play]

we were the first to secede and the first to fight, shelled Sumter until it ran red
this foremost among the tales our grandaddies told
no rifles in hand, the war we fight now's just to keep our kids clothed and fed
and them we fight grandsons of generals still live up the hill in the house with the white portico

there's a mill by the tracks we walked into each day and worked our hands bloody and raw
now there's barbed wire around it and men with shotguns inside
they're brothers and cousins and uncles and neighbors and claim that they're rebels all
and that the old men just holding their own 'gainst the union, the one Mr. Roosevelt says is our right

Chorus:
way down here in the land of cotton
we once dared to dream of fair work for fair pay
but the company men shot us and folks here forgot us
look away, Dixieland, Dixieland, look away

all this talk about new deals up north i can't claim to understand
all i know is the second-hand scent of magnolia don't feed a hungry man

they call us the pawns of the reds and the yankees, but weren't them raised the quotas four score
now the tempers flash white and the bullets rain down from the mill
in the din and dust swirling we pull out our dying, the blood of our own civil war
rebel on rebel, one dead and one holding the dark smoking gun of the man on the hill

Chorus 2
Way down here in the land of cotton
we once dared to dream of fair work for fair pay
But our brothers they shot us, and history forgot us
Look away, Dixieland, Dixieland, look away

Notes

Many thanks to Matthew Grimm for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection

Matthew writes:
'been frenetic, and, as turns out, am headed down to Keokuk today to play the rally for the BCTGM local down there, which Roquette locked out last September. "Bringing Madison to Keokuk."

my website is redsmear.com, but i'm kind of disbanding the band and thinking of redoing the whole thing just around my name, but that's the site for now

got a couple records available on cdbaby, btw, this one is on the one called The Ghost of Rock & Roll.

oh, there's a video we put together with Traveling Light Media for the song around the writer's strike, www.youtube.com/watch?v=owbBzPzTxz0'

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