"The Canadian Railroad Tradgedy."
By: NORBERT CUNNINGHAM,
With Apologies to Gordon Lightfoot.
There'll be a time in this fair land when the railroad will not run,
and the wild majestic mountains stand alone against the sun.
Long before the cutbacks and long before the spiel,
in the green dark forest, hear the silence of the wheels.
But time has no misgivings and history has no grounds,
and for this burdened country they took away the sounds.
We sail upon her waterways and walk the forest tall,
build the roads, the mills, the runways and let the railroad fall.
And when a young man's fancy is burning in the mind,
the railroad men still restless for to hear the hammers kind.
Their minds still overflowing with the vision that they say,
made many a private fortune and left us debt to pay.
Oh they look to the past and what do they see,
they see an iron road running from the sea to the sea.
It took the goods to this once proud land
up from the seaports, it was so grand.
Look away, say they, across this waisted land,
from the east's Bras d'Or to the west so grand.
Knock down the workers and rip up the rails,
they gotta tear up the tracks and claw up the trails.
Wishin' they had their lifeblood's flow,
cursing their fate cause they got it no more.
Behind the blue workers the sun is declining,
the Tories come stealing at the close of the day,
across this great land the rails they lie weeping,
beyond the dark motives in a place far away.
We are the navvies who work on the railway,
swinging our hammers to make us all one.
Lived on their stew, drank their bad whiskey,
bend our backs, now the railroad's all gone.
So over the mountains and over the plains
into the muskeg feeling the pain.
Up the St. Lawrence all the way to gaspe
dropping our hammers, just walking away.
Ripping them out and tearing them down forego the bunkhouse, go into town.
Some dollars today, then our jobs will be dead,
we're sullenly doing what the bossman said.
Oh the songs to the future have been flung
all the dreams they have been wrung,
on the railbed we do stand we are no more in command,
we have opened up the soil
for our tears and lost toil.
There'll be a time in this fair land when the railroad does not run,
and the wild majestic mountains stand alone against the sun.
Long before the cutbacks and long before the spiel
In the green dark forest, hear the silence of the wheels.
In the green dark forest, hear the silence of the wheels.
[ January 29, 2007, 17:10: Message edited by: Jesse-Joe ]
