New words for Ed Pickford’s ‘Workers Song’

Come all of you mothers
Who toil night and day
By hand and by brain
Without any pay
Who for centuries long past
Have made the world’s bread
Have bled for your children
And counted your dead.

In the factories and mills
Hospitals and schools
You’ve often been told
To follow the rules
Your skills are not valued
The men run the job
With unequal pay,
Your pride they have robbed.

But when the sky darkens
And the money gets hard,
Who’s given a spade
And then pushed to the yard?
The family to feed,
By the work of your hand
When you never owned 
One handful of land.

She’s the first one to starve
She’s the first one to die
She’s the first one in line
For that “pie in the sky”
And she’s always the last
When the cream is shared out
For the mother is working
When the husbands are out

When it comes to your body,
And the rights that you own,
It’s been made a prison,
Enslaved in your home,
You are blamed for the rape,
And the pregnancy too,
And now the decisions
Are not up to you.

All of these things
The mother has done
From tilling a field
To bearing the young
Yoked to the plough
Since time first began
And always expected to carry the man

G                                            Em  D      G
Who is he that the faithful flock would let him lead?
G                         Bm
At what cost, is your honour lost,
              Em     D     G
Your heart filled with greed,
              Em    D     G
Your heart filled with greed,

C           D    G
It is a con you see,
C              G    D
Oh, yes a con indeed
            Em    D  G        Em
You’re no child of God, not a chance
         C   G    D      G
You were never freed, never freed.

Sell the doctrine, of success, watch the money breed,
Paint a lie, of pious life,
With a poison seed,
With a poison seed,

Just you take, some simple chords, and an emotive lead,
Tap the insecurity,
and you can make them bleed,
yes you can make them bleed,

Pay the writers, pennies worth, claim it a Christian deed,
Push the goods, on the gullible,
Watch your congregation breed,
Watch your congregation breed,

Buddies with Prime Ministers, you share a common creed,
Sell the dream, of prosperity,
When it’s on them you feed,
When it’s on them you feed

by Daniel Kelly

G               C      G       C
They call me a Social Justice Warrior
     F          C          G
For trying to change the world,
     F          G          C    G    F
A snowflake, a dreamer, a bleeding heart,
     F         G      C  G F
But I’m just here to do my part
F          G          C
A voice against the crowd.

         C             G        C          F
You have cut down the trees, Poisoned the seas,
 F         G          C          F
Raped the earth, done as you please
     Am        F          G         C
My message is simple, not hard to explain,
     F               Am         G         C
Stop fracking and polluting for power and gain,
F               C          G
Preserve the earth for the young.

You keep women down, don’t give them a choice,
Laugh at their stories, and silence their voice,
They are partners and equals, not chattel or slaves,
Mothers and sisters, wise caring and brave,
It’s time for the balance to change.

You trample on cultures, a thousand years old,
Their dreaming is packaged, to be bought and sold,
You have something to learn from the lives they have led,
Their care for each other, and the land that they tread,
Respect the wisdom they hold.

Your children taught violence, and hatred and greed,
Stunted and twisted, fed the capital creed,
Teach them to love, respect for the earth,
To balances their goals, with the futures worth,
To walk light on the ground.