Workers' Song lyrics

Come all of you workers

Who toil night and day

By hand and by brain

To earn your pay

Who for centuries long past

For no more than your bread

Have bled for your countries

And counted your dead

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

And with sliderule and stopwatch

Our pride they have robbed

But 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

When we've never owned

One handful of earth?

We're the first ones to starve

The first ones to die

The first ones in line

For that

And always the last

When the cream is shared out

For the worker is working

When the fat cat's about

All of these things

The worker has done

From tilling the fields

To carrying the gun

We've been yoked to the plough

Since time first began

And always expected

To carry the can