Strike!

Artist:
Ry Cooder

Description:

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Lefty Mouse addresses union meeting. Drawing: Vincent Valdez. Click to enlarge.

Let's join Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse, and Reverend Tom Toad as they journey through time and space in the days of labor, big bosses, farm failures, strikes, company cops, sundown towns, hobos, and trains ... the America of yesteryear.

. . .

"That was no birthday party," Buddy is saying. "Those zinc miners had been to hell and back several times. But they sang out, and that's what they did best. When you sing out, you get strength and power. If you stay quiet and scared, you end up getting pushed around, in worse shape than before. You ever see a strikebreaker or a mining-boss cop sing? No, you ain't, because when you sing, you do it for the next fellow, and that's something the bosses and the cops can never understand. All they know is, beat up somebody and get paid doing it. That's a pretty bad way to live and pretty stupid.

But when those miners started singing, they could bring all kinds of folks in with them, including me: 'Union miners stand together'... made you feel good just to sing it, like you had friends you could count on."

Ry Cooder . . .
Strike!
Traditional, new verses by Ry Cooder

Listen at 56k || Listen at 256k

I got off the train one evening in a little mining town
I started walking up the main street when the sun was going down
When I heard some voices singing, so I went to see what for
Might just be a birthday party, might be room for just one more.

It was miners and their families, they had left the mine that day
Walked out for safe conditions, on strike for decent pay
And they sang about their struggle and their spirit never failed
"Keep your hand upon the dollar and your eye upon the scale"

Union miners stand together, heed no operator's tale
Keep your hand upon the dollar and your eye upon the scale

Ry Cooder

All at once police came running, they came
running everywhere
They broke up that miners' meeting and carried
everyone to jail
But the miners kept on singing and they sang the
whole night through
When the sun rose in the morning I had learned
that miners' song

The judge he asked the police captain, What's
that red cat doing here?
Get all the reds off the streets, sir, was your orders
loud and clear
They turned me out of the jailhouse back door, but
I wouldn't leave my miner friends
I jumped back to the jailhouse window and I sang
that miner song again

Union miners stand together heed no operator's
tale
Keep your hand upon the dollar and your eye upon
the scale

New Cardboard Avenue Jaywalkers: Ry Cooder, vocals, guitar; Mike Seeger, fiddle, harmonica, jaw harp; Joachim Cooder, drums.

Ry Cooder is a member of AFM Local 47.

Production and sound: Ry Cooder, Don Smith, Sunny Levine, Martin Pradler, Aisha Ayers.

My Name Is Buddy CD: www.nonesuch.com/mynameisbuddy/

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