When the Leaves Come Out/Solidarity Forever
SOLIDARITY FOREVER
(Air: "John Brown's Body")
When the Union's inspiration
Through the Workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater
Anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker
Than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
CHORUS
Solidarty forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common
With the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom
And would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left for us
But to organize and fight?
For the Union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the prairies,
Built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines, and built the workshops,
Endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand outcast and starving
'Mid the wonders we have made;
But the Union makes us strong!
All the world that's owned by idle drones,
Is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations.
Built it skywards stone by srone.
It is ours and not to slave in,
But to master and to own,
While the Union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions
That they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle
Not a single wheel can turn!
We can break their galling shackles—
Gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power
Greater than their greedy gold—
Greater than the might of armies,
Magnified a thousandfold;
We can bring to birth the new world
From the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong!
