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I was born in the corn fields of Kentucky |
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I moved north in '73 |
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The war was still going strong so I found a job |
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Rolling steel in a foundry in Homestead |
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I worked beside a guy named Gryzbowski |
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Who taught me how to keep safe |
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He said "there's many a man who lost the fingers from their hands" |
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You could wind up crippled or dead in Homestead |
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And the steel glowed in the white hot chambers |
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The furnace spit fire and smoke |
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And the sunlight came through the cracks in the roof |
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The dust was so thick you could choke |
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I heard all the old stories about the twelve hour shifts in the mill |
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And the union brothers the Pinkertons tried hard to kill |
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Heard about Frick and Carnegie the day the river ran red |
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How the union caved in, in Homestead |
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It was more than a job it was my family |
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I got married, settled down, bought a home |
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And in the bars down the street, in the late summer heat |
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You never had to feel alone |
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I got work tearin' those old mills down |
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Until there's nothing left but the sweat and blood in the ground |
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At night we tuck our little babies in bed |
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We still pray to the red, white and blue in Homestead |
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I'm still livin' in Homestead |
