LET THE UNION'S SPIRIT
Tune: "Midnight Special"; Words by Mimi Yahn, © 1990, 1991


CHORUS:
Let the Union's spirit
Take ahold this land,
Let the Union's power
Fill every woman and man.

Yonder comes my steward,
Got a grievance in her hand,
She come to see the boss man;
You shoulda seen the way he ran. CHORUS

Get on board the Union
Don't be left behind,
Don't be standing by your lonesome;
The boss'll get you if he can. CHORUS

The devil's got his helper,
Your back he's always out to stab;
You know they call this creature
A low-down union-bustin' scab. CHORUS

Don't be fooled by slick words,
Don't be fooled by corporate cons;
They'll always try to split us,
But don't forget which side you're on. CHORUS

The comp'ny's greedy for their profits,
Think they own 'most everything;
Well, there's one thing that they can't own:
Union solidarity! CHORUS


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THE PRINTS OF THE UNKNOWN WOBBLY
Words and music by Mimi Yahn, © 1989, 1991


Oh, I'll tell you a story of our government,
A story of red tape and bureaucracy,
A story that'll make your hair stand up;
It's the story of the Unknown Wobbly.

CHORUS:
Oh, look alive, boys, you FBI boys.
If you're quick enough you just might find
Those fingerprints, boys, those fingerprints;
Yes, the prints of the Unknown Wobbly!

Well, they murdered Joe Hill in 1915;
They framed him on charges of homicide.
But the greatest crime of all to them
Was the songs that he wrote and sang.

Joe Hill said don't mourn, organize;
And scatter my ashes to the merry winds.
So they sent them in packets all over the land
To good Wobbly folks everywhere. CHORUS

Well, two years went by and one packet remained
At the Wobbly headquarters in Chicago,
Till one day the FBI ordered a raid,
So they threw a stamp on it and mailed it.

The Espionage Act had just been passed
And the Postmaster knew what to look for;
When he saw that subversive packet come through
He sent it to you know who. CHORUS

Those dangerous ashes they caused quite a stir,
They poked 'em and pushed 'em and prodded 'em,
And they dusted that packet for fingerprints
But they couldn't tell which were the Reds'! CHORUS

The FBI boys, they worked on that packet
Till World War II came and stalled them,
So, in '44 those ashes were transferred
To the folks at the National Archives.

Well, it wasn't until '88 that the Archives
Decided to do some spring cleaning;
So, they let the Wobblies reclaim what was theirs
And at long last Joe's ashes are back!

Oh, the tale of those ashes spanned seventy years,
But that packet remains a great mystery
And that's why the Feds kept the envelope:
To identify those damned fingerprints!

CHORUS:
Oh, look alive, boys, you FBI boys.
If you're quick enough you just might find
Those fingerprints, boys, those fingerprints,
Yes, the prints of the long-gone Wobbly!


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GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN
(Original by the Almanac Singers, 1941; new verses by Mimi Yahn, ©1990, 2000)

The boss comes up to me with a five-dollar bill,
Says, "Get you some whiskey, gal, and drink your fill."

CHORUS:
Get thee behind me, Satan,
Travel on down the line.
I am a union woman,
Gonna leave you behind.

The big corporations say their profits are down,
Say they gotta cut our wages or they'll leave this town. CHORUS

The union busters tell us that we got to realize
That the way to heaven is to privatize. CHORUS

You know, those plantation bosses wanna work you to death,
But the Avondale workers said, "Enough is enough!" CHORUS

If you work for the City down in New Orleans
You won't even earn enough for to buy some rice and beans. CHORUS

The politicians come to us on Labor Day,
Say, "Vote for me and I'll raise your pay." CHORUS

If anyone should ask you your union to sell,
Just tell him where to go, send him back to Hell. CHORUS


(Note: Chorus and first and last verses by the Almanac Singers, who first sang
it for the striking Ford workers in Detroit in 1941.)

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All songs used by permission.