Listen to The Flood and the Storm song with lyrics from Woody Guthrie

The Flood and the Storm

Woody Guthrie29 May 2020

The Flood and the Storm Lyrics

The year is nineteen and twenty kind friends

And the great World's War we have won

Old Kaiser Bill we've beat him once again

In the smoke of the cannon and the gun

Old von Hindenburg and his Royal German Army

They are tramps in tatters and in rags

Uncle Sammy has tied every nation in this world

In his long old leather money bags

Wilson caught a trip and a train into Paris

Meetin' Lloyd George and Mr Clemenceau

They said to Mr Wilson We've staked all of our claims

There is nothing else for you

I plowed more lands I built bigger fact'ries

An' I stopped Hindenburg in his tracks

You thank the Yanks by claimin' all the lands

But you still owe your money to my bank

Keep sending your ships across these waters

We'll borrow all the money you can lend

We must buy new clothes new plows and fact'ries

And we need golden dollars for to spend

Ever' dollar in the world well it rolled and it rolled

And it rolled into Uncle Sammy's door

A few got richer and richer and richer

But the poor folks kept but gettin' poor

Well the workers in the world did fight a revolution

To chase out the gamblers from their land

Farmers an' peasants an' workers in the city

Fought together on their five-year plans

The soul and the spirit of the workers' revolution

Spread across ever' nation in this world

From Italy to China to Europe and to India

An' the blood of the workers it did spill

This spirit split the wind to Boston Massachussetts

With Coolidge on the Governor's chair

Troopers an' soldiers the guards and the spies

Fought the workers that brought the spirit there

Sacco and Vanzetti had preached to the workers

They was carried up to Old Judge Thayer

They was charged with killin' the payroll guards

And they died in the Charlestown chair

Well the world shook harder on the night they died

Than 'twas shaken by that great World War

More millions did March for Sacco and Vanzetti

Than did March for the great war lords

Well the peasants the farmers the towns and the cities

An' the hills and the valleys they did ring

Hindenburg an' Wilson an' Harding Hoover Coolidge

Never heard this many voices sing

The zigzag lightning the rumbles of the thunder

And the singing of the clouds blowing by

The flood and the storm for Sacco and Vanzetti

 

Caused the rich man to pull his hair and cry

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