Malvina Reynolds - Carolina Cotton Mill Song video free download

Oh I love to get into my clean bed

With its sheets so fair and white,

And when I am in my clean bed,

I sleep thru most the night,

And my dreams are hardly troubled

By the worrying of my mind

For the workers who die of the brown lung

In the mills of Caroline.

Chorus:

Oh the mystical people, they think they are wise,

With the smooth on their faces and stars in their eyes,

But the truths of this system are spoken and sung

By the workers who bear the brown lung.

Oh it's Burlington and Cannon

And the names we wives know well,

Who advertise the sheets and towels

And give us the old soft sell,

And they'd rather buy the government men

With promotions here and there,

Than pay out company profits

For to clean the cotton mill air.

(Chorus)

Oh some people talk of the yin and yang

And walk in a kharma daze,

As though the influence of the stars

Could change mill owners ways,

But the people who work in the cotton mills

They know how the world is run,

And they need some help of an earthly kind

To live their time in the sun.

(Chorus)

Oh the mystics they wear the blue jeans

But their heads are in the stars,

For they do not know how the denim is made

Nor the years of workers' wars.

And my place is not in an ivory tower

Or seeking some power divine,

But it's out on the bricks with the union folks

At the mills in Caroline.

(Chorus)