We Have Fed You All for a Thousand Years
And here we are, still unfed.
And there’s never a dollar of all your wealth,
That doesn’t mark the workers’ dead.
We have given our best,
Just to give you rest,
So you can lie on crimson wool.
But if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Then we have paid in full.

[Bridge]
There’s never a mine blown skyward now,
That we’re buried alive for you.
There is never a wreck drifts shoreward now,
That we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red,
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
Then good God, we have paid it in.

We have fed you all for a thousand years,
For that was our doom you know.
From the days when you chained us in your fields,
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives and our babies and wives,
And we’re told it’s your legal share.
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
Then we have bought it fair.

For a thousand years, For a thousand years (2X)

Words by: Unknown worker
Original music: Mat Callahan