Union Songs
Never Asked for Nothing
A Song by Jack Warshaw©Jack Warshaw 2011
- [play]
He came from the heartland of my country
Born in the year of fifty three
Raised with all the care a kid could wish for
His hometown was a lucky place to beSchool days now being left behind him
Got drafted in year of seventy two
Served until the bloody war was over
Devil knows, somehow he made it throughLookin' for a job then wasn't easy
He travelled like the journeymen of old
Worked his way across the wide horizons
Sometimes it felt like being bought and soldHe built cars up in Flint and down in Dearborn
Drilled for oil out on the Texas plain
Last week they laid him off the Gulf Coast shipyard
Now it looks like he'll never work againThey're sayin' these dark days will soon be over
But talk is cheap and words are wearing thin
Those fifty seven years say so completely
It's gonna be a bit too late for himGrandpa knew about the Great Depression
And what it felt like being down and out
Drifting down the mean streets of your cities
Never knowing what the next day's all aboutI never asked for nothing I ain't worked for
Still proud to call this Land of the Free
But that can only buy a welfare check now
To take care of my own familyThem Wall Street big shot bastards still don't notice
They're living on the bitter price we paid
A million marchers chants are getting louder
Another broken promise that they madeAnd still they live the dream we worked to give them
Their laws still cut us down, right to the bone
Yesterday I couldn't pay the mortgage
Tomorrow they'll come and take our home
Notes
Many thanks to Jack Warshaw for permission to add this song to the Union Songs collection
Jack writes:
'With mass unemployment edging up towards Great Depression levels and millions of home foreclosures, it's a dead end for middle aged workers who lose their jobs. The tune evolved from Dylan's Billy the Kid song.'See more of Jack Warshaw's work in this collection.
union songs..........a selection by mark gregory