Workers' Song

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