Worker's Song (Handful of Earth)

— Dropkick Murphys

In preparing Worker's Song for this month's tune, Labor Notes emailed composer Ed Pickford in Roker, England, and Dropkick Murphys producer and bassist Ken Casey, on tour with the band in Dublin, Ireland.

First we asked Pickford to tell us something of the song's history and how he came to write it. He said:

I wrote the song in the mid 1970s. I wrote it very quickly one Saturday morning. In a way I suppose it was just waiting to be written down because it was a distillation of all the ideas I heard from my father, who was a miner for 50 years, as I grew up.

I gave the song to a very fine Scottish singer called Dick Gaughan and he put it on a CD in 1981 called Handful of Earth -- the title is a line from the song. Dick's CD, maybe to his artistic regret in some ways, has become an icon collection of material. It was from Handful of Earth that another fine singer Steve Young (I asked if I could borrow his voice sometime!) recorded the song on his CD Primal Young.

The Dropkick Murphys got The Workers' Song from Dick Gaughan's CD. I have never met The Dropkick Murphys but my daughter Katie met them at a gig they were doing in the north east of England and they were very kind to her -- they even sent me some of their merchandise. I was thrilled that a young group should record the song of an old folkie like myself. They bring fantastic passion to the song and I think they are a wonderful group.

I started out listening to Woody Guthrie and all those great American Labor Songs. To have a song up there in that pantheon makes me very proud.

We asked Pickford about two phrases unfamiliar to American listeners: "And we're always the last when the cream is shared out" and "always expected to carry the can". He wrote back:

There is a term in the UK for greedy bosses -- they are called "fat cats" and the "fat cats" are usually the ones who get "the cream" -- that is, the kind of rewards that they deny others. While the workforce is being exhorted to "tighten their belts," the same does not apply to the employer.

"Carry the can" means take the blame for something or suffer the consequences from the actions of others -- I think the term "fall guy" is along the same lines.

We then turned to Casey and asked his feelings about the song and how he first came to know it. He wrote:

Thanks for your help promoting the Workers Song, Dropkick Murphys, Ed Pickford, and labor music in general.

We discovered the song when a friend of mine gave me the Dick Gaughan record Handful of Earth. My friend knew I was a big fan of people like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, etc. So he knew I'd love the song and as soon as I heard it. I knew it was a perfect song for the Dropkick Murphys to tackle and we immediately reached out to Ed Pickford who was a great guy, and kind enough to let us record his song.

Musically it has the huge catchy singalong chorus, and lyrically it is ingenious in that it encompasses in such a straightforward, simple way the plight of the worker, and the soldier. It is timeless in that it could apply to the struggle against today's corporate greedy, or to the land barons of other centuries, as well as to any government of any time that has sent its poor off to fight and die.

I think it is important for Dropkick Murphys to sing songs like this because we have a young audience and we are getting the opportunity to continue in the great folk tradition of telling stories like this to the next generation of listeners, who hopefully in turn will do the same themselves.

Dover Air Force Base.
Photo: US Air Force. Click for pop-up.

Music has a way of reaching people's hearts in a way no politician ever will, so I think singing songs like this is a good way to reach out to people, to make them think about the workers' struggle. And singing songs like Worker's Song keeps us strong and motivated to keep on fighting for what we all have coming to us.

Again, I/we appreciate your support.

We followed up asking if the band had any special considerations in adapting an originally acoustic political tune to the punk genre. Casey responded:

From a musical standpoint it was really easy to transform [Worker's Song] from its acoustic form to punk rock. It was like it was waiting for someone to give it that twist. I think old Ed is a punk rocker at heart!

As for us doing a political-minded song, that's also very natural as many of our original songs such as Boys on the Docks, 10 Years of Service, Tomorrow's Industry, Do or Die, and several others are very much labor-related songs themselves.

We thank Pickford and Casey for their thoughtful comments and kind words.

---

1. Yeh, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead.

2. In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines,
We've often been told to keep up with the times,
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job,
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed.

Chorus:
We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die,
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky.
And we're always the last when the cream is shared out,
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about.

3. And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war,
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore,
And expected to die for the land of our birth,
Though we've never owned one lousy handful of earth?

4. All of these things the worker has done,
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun.
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began,
And always expected to carry the can.

---

DKM Personnel: Al Barr, vocals; Tim Brennan, guitar, accordion, banjo, mandolin; Ken Casey, vocals, bass; Matt Kelly, vocals, drums; James Lynch, vocals, guitar; Marc Orell, vocals, guitar; Scruffy Wallace, bagpipes. On this track Brennan did not play, and the bagpiper was Joe Delaney.

---

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Songs not otherwise attributed were recorded at the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange in 2001, 2003, 2004, or 2005 at the National Labor College/George Meany Center, Silver Spring, Maryland. Engineers: Bob Barnes, Ellis Boal, Charlie Ray Fetty III, Joe Jencks, Ray Korona, George Mann, Dave Sless, Isaac Wilson.

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