I took a job on an extra gang,
Way up in the mountain,
I paid my fee and the shack shipped me
And the ties I soon was counting.
Well the boss he put me driving spikes
And the sweat was enough to blind me,
He didn't seem to like my pace,
So I left the job behind me.
I grabbed a hold of an old freight train
And around this country traveled,
The mysteries of a hobo's life
To me were soon unraveled.
I traveled east and I traveled west
And the shacks could never find me,
Next morning I was miles away
From the job I left behind me.
I ran across a bunch of stiffs
Who were known as Industrial Workers.
They taught me how to be a man
And how to fight the shirkers.
I kicked right in and joined the bunch
And now in the ranks you'll find me,
Hurrah for the cause, to hell with the boss
And the job I left behind me.
Way up in the mountain,
I paid my fee and the shack shipped me
And the ties I soon was counting.
Well the boss he put me driving spikes
And the sweat was enough to blind me,
He didn't seem to like my pace,
So I left the job behind me.
I grabbed a hold of an old freight train
And around this country traveled,
The mysteries of a hobo's life
To me were soon unraveled.
I traveled east and I traveled west
And the shacks could never find me,
Next morning I was miles away
From the job I left behind me.
I ran across a bunch of stiffs
Who were known as Industrial Workers.
They taught me how to be a man
And how to fight the shirkers.
I kicked right in and joined the bunch
And now in the ranks you'll find me,
Hurrah for the cause, to hell with the boss
And the job I left behind me.
Contributed by Dead End - 2012/9/3 - 09:07
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Sulla melodia della tradizionale “The Girl I Left Behind Me”
Canzone scritta da Matti Valentin Huhta, meglio conosciuto come T-Bone Slim (1880-1940), nato in Ohio da immigrati finlandesi. Come il più celebre Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, immigrato svedese, meglio conosciuto come Joe Hill, anche T.Bone Slim fu agitatore sindacale, poeta, musicista girovago, “hobo” e sono sue molte delle canzoni contenute nel “Little Red Songbook” dei Wobblies, gli Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), l’organizzazione operaia nata nel 1905 e che ebbe il suo culmine nei primi 20 anni del secolo passato.
Cisco Houston, grande amico e collaboratore di Woody Guthrie, incise questo brano nel suo “Songs of the Open Road” del 1960, pubblicato poi dalla Folkways nel 1962 dopo la sua morte.