Utah Phillips
We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years
[Verse 1]
We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the worker's dead

[Chorus]
We have yielded our best for to give you rest
And you lie on a crimson wool
If blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God, we have paid in full

[Verse 2]
There's never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But wе are its ghastly crew

[Chorus]
Go and reckon our dеad by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God, we have paid it in

[Verse 3]
We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago!
[Chorus]
You have taken our lives and our husbands and wives
And called it your legal share
If blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God, we have bought it fair