Songs of the Workers (9th edition)/Harvest War Song
We are coming home, John Farmer; we are coming back to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more, we've gathered up your hay.
We have slept out in your hayfields, we have heard your morning shout;
We've heard you wondering, where in hell's them pesky go-abouts?
CHORUS:
It's a long way, now understand me; it's a long way to town;
It's a long way across the prairie, and to hell with Farmer John.
Up goes machine or wages, and the hours must come down;
For we're out for a winter's stake this summer, and we want no scabs around.
You've paid the going wages, that's what kept us on the bum,
You say you've done your duty, you chin-whiskered son of a gun.
We have sent your kids to college, but still you must rave and shout,
And call us tramps and hoboes, and pesky go-abouts.
But now the wintry breezes are a-shaking our poor frames,
And the long drawn days of hunger, try to drive us boes insane.
It is driving us to action—we are organized today;
Us pesky tramps and hoboes, are coming back to stay.
Every worker should have an ambition to live to be a healthy old man or woman and hear the whistle blow for the bosses to go to work.