Song picture
Boat People
Like
Playlist
Comment Share
Free download
All of us are boat people.
Political/personal songs since the 1960s -- killer ballads, working-class anthems, political satire. Fred's twelve-string guitar can be anything from a blues ba
Fred Stanton’s songs (along with his lumberjack voice and jumbo 12-string guitar) embody the political folk-singing tradition. Fred has been an industrial worker (a welder of oilfield equipment; an electronic assembler; and a railroad electrician, hostler and brakeperson) as well as a political organizer and union activist. This life is at the heart of his songsmoving, personal ballads, rollicking satires, and working-class anthems. Fred has been singing in concerts, union rallies and political protests since the 1960s. His union songs celebrate the struggles of strikers at Peabody Coal, poultry processing workers in North Carolina, and strawberry pickers in California. And his "Singing Cars," a Bronx salute to car alarms, has been featured on NPR’s "Car Talk" show. Newest songs include “Five-Dollar Coal,” which is the story of miners in Utah fighting for a union.
Song Info
Genre
Acoustic • Acoustic Folk
Charts
Peak #126
Peak in subgenre #28
Author
Fred Stanton
Rights
Copyright © 2002 by Fred Stanton
Uploaded
April 16, 2004
Track Files
MP3
MP3 4.3 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00
Lyrics
Boat Beople Pardon me, bud, I thought you understood, we’re all boat people here—- Our union's a union of immigrants, our history’s crystal clear. We're many songs and many flavors, our color is the rainbow sign, And we learn each other’s language, as we walk the picket line. Chorus: Some of us came on slave ships, some on a birch-bark canoe. Kayaks, rafts, slow boats and fast, airships and steamships too, A7 E7 A7 D7 Some landed on the banks of the Rio Grande, some on Plymouth Rock, But all of us are boat people, the new kids on the block. The folks who built the railroads were a multinational team. Chang and Mike drove; a million spikes and bridged a thousand streams. Hans and Vlasek made the steel, Giovanni dug the coal, Vanderbilt took the profits, but we made the engines roll. (Chorus) In Lawrence, Massachusetts, back in 1912, Women and children went on strike, the boss said, “Go to hell!” Our slogan was Bread and Roses, in fifteen different tongues, The fight was rough, but we all hung tough, and that Wobbly union won. (Chorus) From the fields of California to the slaughterhouse of St. Paul, We all say, “¡Si, se puede!” when la migra comes to call. They call us Chiapas rebels, the Mau Mau, the Viet Cong, In other words, we’re union, and the union makes us strong, (Chorus) There’s an army along the Rio Grande, a navy off Key West, And the only green card they want to see is American Express. But we sail into the sweatshops, and we rally on the streets, We’re rockin’ solidarity in the belly of the beast. (Chorus)
On Playlists
Comments
Please sign up or log in to post a comment.