Tune by Rudolph Von Liebich; Lyrics by unknown, ca 1925; performed by Utah Phillips - From the album, We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years, 1983
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Lyrics:
We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed.
Though there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers’ dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest,
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full.
There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we’re buried alive for you.
There is never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the fact’ries where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full!
We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike of a week ago.
You have taken our lives and our babies and wives,
And we’re told it’s your legal share.
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
Good God! We have bought it fair.