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elie siegmeister - the strange funeral in braddock lyrics

listen to the drums of a strange american funeral
listen! to the story of a strange american funeral

in the town of braddock, pennsylvania
where the steel+mills live like foul dragons, burning, devouring man and
earth and sky
it is spring. now the spring has wandered in, a frightened child in the
land of the steel ogres
and jan clepak, the great grinning bohemian, on his way to work at six
in the morning
sees b+ttons of bright grass on the hills above the river, plum+trees
hung with wild white blossoms
and as he sweats half+naked at his puddling+trough, a fiend by the lake
of brimstonе
the plum+trees soften his heart
and thе green grass+memories return and soften his heart
and he forgets to be hard as steel, and remembers only his wife’s
br++sts, his baby’s little laughter
and he remembers cows and sheep, and the grinning peasants, and the
villages and fields of sunny bohemia

listen to the mournful drums of a strange funeral!
listen to the story of a strange american funeral!

wake up! wake up! the furnaces are roaring like tigers
the flames are flinging themselves at the high roof
wake up! it is ten o’clock, and the next batch of flowing steel is to
be poured in your puddling+trough
wake up! wake up! for a flawed lever is cracking in one of the
fiendish cauldrons
and now the lever has cracked, and the steel is raging and running like
a madman
wake up! oh, the dream is ended and the steel has swallowed you
forever, jan clepak!
listen to the mournful drums of a strange funeral

now three tons of hard steel hold at their heart the bones, flesh
nerves, the muscles, brains and heart of jan clepak
they hold the memories of green grass and sheep, the plum+trees, the
baby+laughter, and the sunny bohemian villages
and the directors of the steel+mill present the great coffin of steel
and man+memories to the widow of jan clepak, with many mournful
speeches
on a great truck it is borne now to a great trench in the graveyard
and jan clepak’s widow and two friends ride in a carriage behind the
block of steel
and mourn the soft man who was k!lled by the hard steel

listen to the drums of a strange funeral!
listen to the story of a strange american funeral!

and jan clepak’s widow is thinking, “i’ll wash clothes, i’ll scrub
floors, but my children will never work in a steel+mill!”
and three mourners were sitting in the graveyard and thinking strange
thoughts:
“i’ll make myself hard as steel, harder
i’ll come some day and make bullets out of jan’s body, and shoot them
into a tyrant’s heart!”

listen to the drums, to the mournful drums, listen to the drums, to the
drums, listen!

- elie siegmeister lyrics

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