The Ballad of Frank Little Lyrics

The sun rose over Homestake in the early morning fog

And a man got off a train bound straight for glory

With a red card in his pocket and a fire in his eye

Frank Little was his name and this his story

To the town of Butte, Montana where they work down in the mines

Trading waking hours for blood and sweat and sorrow

Digging copper for the bosses while they throw us naught but dimes

And praying that we see the sun tomorrow

Just two weeks ago, a thousand feet beneath the ground

Two hundred men burned alongside their brothers

Against the doorless bulkheads of the Speculator Mine

They probably died calling for their mothers

Frank Little walked into the town and made his reason known

He's a Wobbly that has been sent from Chicago

He's organized the workers from the mountains to the sea

And he's here to fight for you and fight for me

The lumber camps out in Missoula to the quarries of Spokane

To the oil fields and the dock boys of Wisconsin

Even the migrant workers on the California farms

He organized and inspired his fellow man

We're gonna' strike

We're gonna' strike

We're gonna' strike boys like you never struck before

From the mines up to the shops we're gonna' pull out all the stops

And we'll never stand alone forevermore

You're a worker of the world forevermore

He stood with us through the beatings from The Company's hired men

'Till the picket line stretched on a hundred thousand

Side by side we made a promise, we would not be slaves again

Deafening the bosses with our howling

The workers, Little told, are worth a thousand years in gold

We were never meant to bleed for bread and roses

You can't give up this fight

Hold the picket line tonight

Workers of the World

Unite

Unite

In the early August morning they kicked in Franky's door

And drug him naked out into the street

Those yellow bastards tortured him

Company men and Pinkertons

They tied him up and knocked him off his feet

The sun rose over Homestake in the early morning fog

And a mountain wind went whistling through the trees

Frank Little swung there gently from the Milwaukee bridge

A noose 'round his neck and blood running down his knees

Well, they thought they'd break the strike if they took Frank Little's life

But The Company was gravely mistaken

From Haymarket to Montana is a sea of red bandanas

And the breath of revolution can't be taken

We're gonna' strike

We're gonna' strike

We're gonna' strike boys like you've never struck before

We fought a thousand years alone

We stared down death all on our own

But we'll never stand alone forevermore

We're The Workers of the World forevermore