Salt Of The Earth

(album: Beggar's Banquet - 1968)

Let's drink to the hard-working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common-foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back-breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

When I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard-working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leading but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
Empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray-suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

When I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and black and white
They don't look real to me
Oh don't they look so strange?

Let's drink to the hard-working people
Let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard-working people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth

Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth
Let's take a drink to the salt of the earth