Well my daddy worked them furnaces
Kept em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Them smokestacks reachin like the arms of God
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay. . .
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. . ."
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
And Youngstown
And Youngstown
My sweet Jenny I'm sinkin down
Here darlin 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
My wife had died a year ago
I was still tryin to find my way back whole
Went to work for the INS on the line
With the California border patrol
Bobby Ramirez was a ten year veteran
We became friends
His family was from Guanajuato
So the job it was different for him. . .
Well I was good at doin what I was told
Kept my uniform pressed and clean
At night I chased their shadows
Through the arroyos and ravines
Drug runners farmers with families
Young women with little children by their sides
Come night we'd wait out in the canyons
And try to keep em from crossing the line
Well the first time I saw her
She was in the holdin pen
Our eyes met and she looked away
Then she looked back again
Her hair was black as coal
Her eyes reminded me of what I'd lost
She had a young child cryin in her arms
I asked "Senora is there anything I can do?"
. . .We'd rush em in our broncos
Force em back down into the river below
She climbed into my truck
She leaned toward me and we kissed
As we drove her brother's shirt slipped open
And I saw the tape across his chest. . .
We were just about on the highway
When Bobby's jeep come up in the dust on my right . . .
I felt myself movin
My gun restin 'neath my hand
We stood there starin at each other
As off through the arroyo she ran
Bobby Ramirez he never said nothin
Six months later I left the line
I drifted to the central valley
And took what work I could find
At nights I searched the local bars
And the migrant towns
Lookin for my Lousia. . .
Men walkin 'long the railroad tracks
Goin someplace there's no goin back
Highway patrol choppers comin up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin' round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin in their cars in the Southwest
No home no job no peace no rest. . .
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin in the city aqueduct
Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin down here in the campfire light
Waitin on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin
a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me
Well the highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad