The Workers Song

Written by Ed Pickford, performed first by Dick Gaughan (whose website is sadly down.)

Lyrics

These lyrics are based on the version performed by the Longest Johns in their Livestreams, the original lyrics can be found below.

Come on all you workers
Who toil night and day
By hand and by brain
To earn your pay

Who for centuries all past
For no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries
And counted your dead

{Chorus}
We're the the first ones to starve
We're the first ones to die
the first ones in line
For that “pie in the sky”
And we're always the last
When the cream is shared out
For the worker is working
When the fat cat's about

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
To slide-rule and stopwatch
Our pride they have robbed.

{Chorus}

And 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
though we've never owned
one lousy handful of earth

{Chorus}

And all of these things
The worker has done
From tilling the field
To carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough
Since time first began
And always expected to carry the can