by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
Chorus:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife—
Try to get something good in this life—
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Workingmen of all countries unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight:
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain:
Last Chorus:
You will eat, bye and bye.
When you’ve learned how to cook and to fry;
Chop some wood, ‘twill do you good,
And you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
2
“Casey Jones—The Union Scab” is said to have been written by Joe Hill in 1911 during a strike of shop workers on the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Pedro, California, when engineers and some other skilled craft workers continued to operate the trains. Hill’s parody is set to the popular “Casey Jones” song about the brave engineer who stuck to the wheel of his train. Barrie Stavis, in the introduction to The Man Who Never Died (New York, 1954), wrote: “Joe Hill’s song writing career was launched. The song helped to hold the strikers together. It was sung by the men on the picket line and by those who were clubbed and thrown into jail. It was printed on colored cards, about the size of a playing card, and sold, the proceeds going to the strike fund. Overnight the song became famous. Migratory laborers carried it on their lips as they moved across the nation; sailors carried it across the ocean.”
Two articles by folklorists Duncan Emrich and William Alderson on Joe Hill’s “Casey Jones” appear in the California Folklore Quarterly (Winter 1942, p. 293 and pp. 373–76).
The song was printed in the fourth edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
CASEY JONES–
THE UNION SCAB*
By JOE HILL
(Tune: “Casey Jones”)
The Workers on the S.P. line to strike sent out a call;
But Casey Jones, the engineer, he wouldn’t strike at all;
His boiler it was leaking, and its drivers on the bum,
And his engine and its bearings, they were all out of plumb.
Chorus:
Casey Jones kept his junk pile running;
Casey Jones was working double time;
Casey Jones got a wooden medal,
For being good and faithful on the S.P. line.
The Workers said to Casey: “Won’t you help us win this strike?”
But Casey said: “Let me alone, you’d better take a hike.”
Then some one put a bunch of railroad ties across the track,
And Casey hit the bottom with an awful crack.
Chorus:
Casey Jones hit the river bottom;
Casey Jones broke his blessed spine,
Casey Jones was an Angeleno,
He took a trip to heaven on the S.P. line.
When Casey Jones got up to heaven to the Pearly Gate,
He said: “I’m Casey Jones, the guy that pulled the S.P. freight.”
“You’re just the man,” said Peter; “our musicians went on strike;
You can get a job a-scabbing any time you like.”
Chorus:
Casey Jones got up to heaven;
Casey Jones was doing mighty fine;
Casey Jones went scabbing on the angels,
Just like he did to workers on the S.P. line.
The angels got together, and they said it wasn’t fair,
For Casey Jones to go around a-scabbing everywhere.
The Angels Union No. 23, they sure were there,
And they promptly fired Casey down the Golden Stair.
Chorus:
Casey Jones went to Hell a-flying.
“Casey Jones,” the Devil said, “Oh, fine;
Casey Jones, get busy shoveling sulpher—
That’s what you get for scabbing on the S.P. line.”
3
“Coffee An “ was printed in the fourth edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
COFFEE AN’
Composed by J. H. of the I.W.W.
(Tune: “Count Your Blessings”)
An employment shark the other day I went to see,
And he said, “Come in and buy a job from me,
Just a couple of dollars for the office fee,
But the job is steady and the fare is free.”
Chorus:
Count your pennies, count them one by one,
And you’ll plainly see how you are done,
Count your pennies, take them in your hand,
Sneak into a Jap’s, and get your coffee an.
I shipped out and worked and worked and slept in lousy bunks,
And the grub it stunk as bad as forty-’leven skunks,
When I slaved a week the boss he said one day,
“You’re too tired, you are fired, go and get your pay.”
Chorus.
When the clerk commenced to count, Oh, holy gee!
Road and school and poll tax and the hospital fee,
Then I fainted and I nearly lost my sense
When the clerk he said, “You owe me fifty cents.”
Chorus.
When I got back to town with blisters on my feet,
There I heard a fellow speaking on the street,
And he said, “It is the workers’ own mistake,
If they stick together they get all they make.”
Chorus.
And he said, “Come in and join our union grand.
Who will be a member of this fighting band?”
“Write me out a card,” says I, “By gee!
The Industrial Workers is the dope for me.”
Chorus:
Count your workers, count them one by one,
Join our union and we’ll show you how it’s done.
Stand together, workers, hand in hand.
Then we’ll never have to live on coffee an.
4
The Industrial Worker (April 11, 1912) included a news story on a strike of construction workers on the Canadian Northern Railroad which reported, “… the main thing that caused the walkout was the foul conditions of the camps in which the men were herded.” Four weeks later an article in the Industrial Worker (May 9, 1912) stated, ”The strikers on the Canadian Northern are singing songs as they carry on the strike. The songs are said to be the work of Fellow Worker J. Hill. Lack of space prevents the publication of more than one of them.”
WHERE THE FRASER RIVER FLOWS*
(Tune: “Where the Shannon River Flows”)
Fellow workers, pay attention to what I’m gonna mention,
For it is the fixed intention of the Workers of of the World,
And I hope you’ll all be ready, true-hearted, brave and steady,
To rally round the standard when the Red Flag is unfurled.
Chorus:
Where the Fraser River flows,
Each fellow worker knows,
They have bullied and oppressed us,
But still our Union grows.
And were going to find a way, boys;
For shorter hours and better pay, boys;
And were going to win the day, boys;
Where the Fraser River flows.
For these gunny-sack contractors have all been dirty actors,
And they’re not our benefactors, each fellow worker knows.
So we’ve got to stick together in fine or dirty weather,
And we will show no white feather, where the Fraser River flows.
Now the boss the law is stretching, bull
s and pimps he’s fetching,
And they are a fine collection, as Jesus only knows.
But why their mothers reared them, and why the devil spared them,
Are questions we can’t answer, where the Fraser River flows.
5
“Mr. Block,” published in the Industrial Worker (January 23, 1913), was the first of a group of eight new Joe Hill songs printed in that paper during the following four months.
Sociologist Carleton Parker, investigating the 1913 hop-pickers’ strike on the Durst Brothers’ ranch in Wheatland, California, wrote in his report on the Wheatland Riot that the sheriff and his deputies fired into a group of 2000 strikers who were singing “Mr. Block” (The Casual Laborer and Other Essays, New York, 1920). The song inspired Ernest Riebe’s popular series of “Mr. Block” cartoons which appeared in Solidarity, the Industrial Worker, and other I.W.W. publications.
MR. BLOCK*
By JOE HILL
(Tune: “It Looks to Me Like a Big Time Tonight”)
Please give me your attention, I’ll introduce to you
A man that is a credit to “Our Red, White and Blue”;
His head is made of lumber, and solid as a rock;
He is a common worker and his name is Mr. Block.
And Block thinks he may Be President some day.
Chorus:
Oh, Mr. Block you were born by mistake,
You take the cake,
You make me ache.
Tie a rock on your block and then jump in the lake,
Kindly do that for liberty’s sake.
Yes, Mr. Block is lucky; he found a job, by gee!
The shark got seven dollars, for job and fare and fee.
They shipped him to the desert and dumped him with his truck,
But when he tried to find his job he sure was out of luck.
He shouted, “That’s too raw,
I’ll fix them with the law.”
Block hiked back to the city, but wasn’t doing well.
He said, “I’ll join the union—the great A. F. of L.”
He got a job next morning, got fired in the night,
He said, “I’ll see Sam Gompers and he’ll fix that foreman right.”
Sam Gompers said, “You see,
You’ve got our sympathy.”
Election Day he shouted, “A Socialist for Mayor!”
The “comrade” got elected, he happy was for fair,
But after the election he got an awful shock,
A great big Socialist Bull did rap him on the block.
And Comrade Block did sob,
“I helped him to his job.”
Poor Block, he died one evening, I’m very glad to state;
He climbed the golden ladder up to the pearly gate.
He said, “Oh, Mr. Peter, one word I’d like to tell,
I’d like to meet the Asterbilts and John D. Rocke-fell.”
Old Pete said, “Is that so?
You’ll meet them down below.”
6
“Scissorbill,” one of Joe Hill’s most popular songs, was printed in the Industrial Worker (February 16, 1913).
SCISSOR BILL*
By JOE HELL
(Tune: “Steamboat Bill”)
You may ramble round the country anywhere you will,
You’ll always run across the same old Scissor Bill.
He’s found upon the desert, he is upon the hill,
He’s found in every mining camp and lumber mill.
He looks just like a human, he can eat and walk,
But you will find he isn’t, when he starts to talk.
He’ll say, “This is my country,” with an honest face,
While all the cops they chase him out of every place.
Chorus:
Scissor Bill, he is a little dippy,
Scissor Bill, he has a funny face.
Scissor Bill should drown in Mississippi,
He is the missing link that Darwin tried to trace.
And Scissor Bill, he couldn’t live without the booze,
He sits around all day and spits tobacco juice.
He takes a deck of cards and tries to beat the Chink!
Yes, Bill would be a smart guy if he could only think.
And Scissor Bill he says: “This country must be freed
From Niggers, Japs and Dutchmen and the gol durn Swede.”
He says that every cop would be a native son
If it wasn’t for the Irishman, the son-of-a-gun.
Chorus:
Scissor Bill, the “foreigners” is cussin;
Scissor Bill, he says “I hate a Coon”;
Scissor Bill is down on everybody
The hottentots, the bushmen and the man in the moon.
Don’t try to talk your union dope to Scissor Bill,
He says he never organized and never will.
He’ll always be satisfied until he’s dead,
With coffee and a doughnut and a lousy old bed.
And Bill, he says he gets rewarded thousand fold,
When he gets up to Heaven on the streets of gold.
But I don’t care who knows it, and right here I’ll tell.
If Scissor Bill is going to Heaven, I’ll go to Hell.
Chorus:
Scissor Bill, wouldn’t join the union,
Scissor Bill, he says, “Not me, by Heck!”
Scissor Bill gets his reward in Heaven,
Oh! sure. He’ll get it, but he’ll get it in the neck.
7
Joe Hill’s article, “The People,” appeared in the Industrial Worker (March 6, 1913).
THE PEOPLE
By J. HILL
“The People’s flag is deepest red.” Who are the people?
“God knows” Taft stands for “the people.” If you don’t believe it just read the “Los Angeles Crimes” and you will find out that, next to General Debility Otis, Taft is the greatest man in the country. Yes, Fatty stands for the people all right—when he is standing, but he is sitting down most of the time.
And “Teddy da Roos,” who used to peddle the Bull Moose, is also very strong for “the people.” Some time ago he wasn’t so strong and then it was that he invented a policeman’s riot club filled with spikes. It would crush the skull of a wage slave with one blow. Yes, “Teddy da Roos,” he is strong for “the people.”
And Woodhead Wilson, he is for “the people” too. This is what he said in one of his speeches: “Why shouldn’t the children of the workingclass be taught to do the work their parents are now doing?” Of course, he meant to say “Why shouldn’t the children of the rich be taught to rob the class their parents are now robbing?” And he is going to give “the people” free silver, he says, but if a working stiff wants any silver he has to peel off his coat and hop to the stormy end of a No. 2.
When the Red Flag was flying in Lower California there were not any of “the people” in the ranks of the rebels. Common working stiffs and cow-punchers were in the majority, with a little sprinkling of “outlaws,” whatever that is.
“The people” used to come down there on Sunday in their stinkwagons to take a look at “The wild men with their Red Flag” for two-bits a look. But if the Mexican or the Indian regiment happened to be a little overjoyed from drinking “mescal” and took a notion to have a bit of sociable target practice, or to try to make buttonholes for one another without taking their clothes off, then “the people” would almost break their legs to get to their stinkwagons and make a bee-line for the “Land of the Graft and the Home of the Slave.”
Well, it is about time that every rebel wakes up to the fact that “the people” and the workingclass have nothing in common. Let us sing after this “The Workers’ flag is deepest red” and to hell with “the people.”
One Big Union Monthly, November 1919.
8
Set to the Stephen Foster tune, “My Old Kentucky Home” this song first appeared in the Industrial Worker (March 6, 1913).
&nb
sp; WE WILL SING ONE SONG*
By JOE HILL
We will sing one song of the meek and humble slave,
The horny-handed son of the soil,
He’s toiling hard from the cradle to the grave,
But his master reaps the profits of his toil.
Then we’ll sing one song of the greedy master class,
They’re vagrants in broadcloth, indeed,
They live by robbing the ever-toiling mass,
Human blood they spill to satisfy their greed.
Chorus:
Organize! O, toilers, come organize your might;
Then well sing one song of the Workers Commonwealth
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
We will sing one song of the politician sly,
He’s talking of changing the laws;
Election day all the drinks and smokes hell buy,
While he’s living from the sweat of your brows.
Then we’ll sing one song of the girl below the line,
She’s scorned and despised everywhere,
While in their mansions the “keepers” wine and dine
From the profits that immoral traffic bear.
We will sing one song of the preacher, fat and sleek,
He tells you of homes in the sky.
He says “Be generous, be lowly and be meek
If you don’t you’ll sure get roasted when you die.”
Then we’ll sing one song of the poor and ragged tramp,
He carries his home on his back;
Too old to work, he’s not wanted round the camp,
So he wanders without aim along the track.
We will sing one song of the children in the mills,
They’re taken from the playgrounds and schools.
In tender years made to go the pace that kills,
In the sweatshops, ‘mong the looms and spools.
Then we’ll sing one song of the One Big Union Grand.
The hope of the toiler and the slave,
It’s coming fast; it is sweeping sea and land,
To the terror of the grafter and the knave.
9
This song first appeared in the Industrial Worker (March 6, 1913).
WHAT WE WANT
By J. HILL
(Tune: “Rainbow”)
We want all the workers in the world to organize