Youngstown

(album: The Ghost Of Tom Joad - 1995)

Here in northeast Ohio
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Dan Heaton
Found the ore that was lining Yellow Creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannonballs
That helped the Union win the war

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinking down
Here darling in Youngstown

Well, my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept them hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam, worked my way to scarfer
A job that would suit the devil as well
Taconite coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
The smokestacks reaching like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinking down
Here darling in Youngstown

Well, my daddy come on the Ohio works
When he come home from World War Two
Now the yard's just scrap and rubble
He said "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dying for

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinking down
Here darling in Youngstown

From the Monongahela valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalachia
The story's always the same
Seven hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir, you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinking down
Here darling in Youngstown

When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heaven's work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell