1. |
Down to Our Last Dollar
02:19
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In our rusty old truck alongside of this highway
In the Devil’s own corner of these US of A
It’s down to fuel or food with our last dollar:
Darling I don’t think we’re having supper today
No darling I don’t think we’re having supper today
It’s three weeks gone since we left Muskogee County
Once the locusts finished eating what the sun didn’t fry
We up and hit the road when the banker came a’knocking:
Sorry Mister Banker but the well’s run dry
I’m sorry Mister Banker but the well’s run dry
When there ain’t no work and there ain’t no rain
Can you tell me what the hell a simple man’s supposed to do?
When you’re just one more desperate Duster in this ragged wagon train–
Strung out along this highway like a twister’s just torn through
Strung out along this highway like a twister’s just torn through
Last night around the fire a preacher said the Bible said
“The Lord insists on kindness for the humble and the sick”
Well I appreciate the sentiment but when I meet my maker, I’ll say:
“Give you A for effort but you didn’t make it stick”
“’ll give you A for effort Lord but you didn’t make it stick”
Where there ain’t no love and there’s no damn no justice
Can you tell me where the hell a simple man’s supposed to go?
When every town is sending cops and Pinkertons to bust us–
Tearing down our camp to send us packing down the road
Tearing down our camp to send us packing down the road
A crying child, a kerosene smell
Days and nights in badlands baked into a dusty hell
Broke and sick and hungry, tired to the bone
We’re down to our last dollar but we haven’t found a home
Down to our last dollar, and we ain’t found a home
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2. |
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Without so much as a “how d’you do sir?” or “appreciate it, thanks!”
They took money from our pockets and gave it to the banks
Who came collecting on the mortgage and put us on the street
Where we’ve been scratching for survival, sleeping on our feet
‘Cause the cops would come to roust us when we found a place to lie
Unwelcome back in town we tried gave the countryside a try
But the farmers they don’t want us ‘cause the river’s running dry
What are working folks to do?
Well I guess we’re supposed to die
What are working folks to do?
I guess we’re supposed to die
When the boss shut down the factory he put a big sign on the door
“You fellas clear on out, ain’t no men wanted here n o more”
The government man he queued us up for charity instead
‘Til so many hungry people showed they ran all outta bread
When we’re getting’ weaker by the minute like cattle being bled
Who’ll work the mines and mills and farms if there are better times ahead?
So I buttonholed a bankerman and this is what I said:
What are you fat cats gonna do
When us working folks are dead?
What are you fat cats gonna do sir
When us working folks are dead?
When after ’29 and ’30, ’31 and ’32
You’ve lost all hope of finding work an honest man can do
So you’ve got no better answer to “daddy what else can we try?”
Than what are working folks to do son–
I guess we’re supposed to die
What are working folks to do son?
I guess we’re supposed to die
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3. |
Love in a Time of Want
02:04
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Is there a place for love in a time of want?
A way to show you care in an hour of need?
A way to take a stand when you fear you can’t
Keep the faith in an age of greed?
Mothers tell your daughters, fathers teach your sons
Though we got hard times now, we ain’t the only ones
For our brothers and sisters across this hard land
Make a place in your heart, and lend a helping hand
And when the bankers and bosses and inheritors of wealth
Sit on the backs of other claiming “it’s each man for himself”
Stand up and raise your voices, tell ‘em their mistake:
That the measure of a man is more than how much he can take
And that there’s a place for love in a time of want
That you can show care in an hour of need
And you can take a stand, when you fear you can’t
Keep the faith in this age of greed
We can keep the faith in an age of greed
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4. |
The Hardest Hard Time
02:36
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The hardest hard time that we’d ever known
Took all that we had, killed all that we’d sown
The hardest hard time that we’d ever seen
Made ashes and dust out of all that’d been green
I never thought all I’d got be undone by the weather
Or how I’d come to hate the sight of the sun in the sky
Or that things could get bad and then worse and then never get better–
We all learned something new muddling through these hardest hard times
The dust boiled up till it towered the height of a mountain
The clouds tore through town like breath from the Devil’s own throat
Couldn’t pay the mortgage for so many months I stopped countin’–
‘Till the Bankerman came to foreclose sir and that’s all she wrote
WPA in California
Is providing four walls and three square
It’s far our from home in Oklahoma—
But at least here we’re breathing clean air
At least here we're breathing clean air
Now I’m haunted by visions of all that I’d seen in Muskogee
Like a little baby coughing up dust ‘till her tiny ribs broke
And every grave that we dug to bury the body
Of another poor Duster whose dreams had all gone up in smoke
In these hardest hard times
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5. |
A Whole Lot of Trouble
01:13
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Tell me now brother, “How’d it go down–
Your homesteading in a western town?”
“Oh brother, it ain’t gone right
Dust clouds boiled up as black as night
And a man can’t reap if a man can’t sow
Oh how I wish we never did go
See I lost my tractor and I lost my cow
But I don’t give a damn about them now
Lost a whole lotta money but I don’t care
‘Cause I left our little baby there
There’s a whole lotta trouble Oklahoma way
And dust piling up on a little girl’s grave”
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6. |
When the Bill Comes Due
02:26
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I saw the sin of Pride out promenading
Down avenues all paved with gold
From the spoils of speculating—
Turning everything of worth on God’s green Earth
Into something to be bought and sold
It’s a crying shame, sir, the state we’re in—
Where the poor man pays, lord, lord for the rich man’s sin
I heard the sin of Greed expostulating
That the rich man’s trove
Is his needful share—
And how that squares with the cries of a hungry child
Greed don’t care
The Glutton’s creed concedes no stain
Of iniquity to the rich man’s claim
Yet when the rich man sins the poor foot the bill—
Want on the streets is the price of avarice in the mansions on the hill
But when the bill comes due, sir, when the bill comes due
No more hat in hand, sir, when the bill comes due—
When the bill comes due sir, when the bill comes due
We’ll claim what right demands, sir, when the bill come due
When the bill comes due sir, when the bill comes due
We’ll settle up the score, when the bill comes due
When the bill comes due sir, when the bill comes due
No child hungry any more, sir, when the bill comes due
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Bryan Kirschner Seattle, Washington
I write songs that tell stories about love and fear, resignation and resurgence, in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and
Bruce Springsteen.
Hard Times Hundred & One--of which this is a part--is my project to create 101 songs inspired by photos from the Great Depression.
... more
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