Alabama '58 Lyrics
Alabama '58 - Luke Kelly
In Alabama 1958
The cost of human life is very low
A man that's black is trampled down
Just like they were a thousand years ago
But these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
Two thousand years ago a million men
Were gathered into royal Egypt's land
Were bound together forced to build
Pyramids of stone in desert sand
But these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
Mary's son walked through a land of woe
Dreaming of the world as it could be
But the good and lawful men of Rome
Bound him like a robber to a tree
But these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
In Britain just a hundred years ago
The jails were full of good and hungry men
Diggers fenians many more
Fought and died but rose to fight again
But these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
Last year a negro stole a dollar bill
The judge he said
We mustn't be severe
Instead of death we'll give him life imprisonment
To show there's justice here
For these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
And so throughout the ages you have seen
How progress marches ever on its way
No rack no wheel no Spanish boot
For Alabama's prisoners today
For these are more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go
Now every man may walk his road in peace
For all are free
In these more enlightened days
No room for all these savage ways
Leave and let them go