Denis Kevans
Here come the scabs, the scabs
here they come –
No-one is shouting, no-one even points,
They don’t have to say a thing.
The Big Strike’s on, the General Strike,
Strike against the madness of the War,
Strike against conscription, and the
polishers of the Crown,
Strike against the crushing of their rights.
Joe Hill’s ashes came to this town,
To Sydney town in 1916,
Stolen, they were thrown away,
But the workers heard the story of Joe Hill.
The ‘Wobblies’ have been gaoled,
Fourteen years for fourteen words,
Words of sedition, prejudicial
To recruiting for the slaughterhouse in France.
Here come the scabs, here they come, scabs, scabs,
‘Comen’ down the road in Camperdown,
Come on, Merv, we’ll stop the bastards here,
Or we’ll eat crow for many a year.
“Look out!” they say, one has got a gun,
He fires point blank at Flanagan,
Merv Flanagan falls and chokes in his blood,
Murdered on a street in Sydney town.
It’s the strike, the Big Strike, the Big Strike
is on,
Strike against the madness of the war,
Strike against wage cuts, and loss of
conditions,
And Merv Flanagan’s lying in his gore.
One more gone, one more fellow worker,
Lying, drains, on Bridge Rd., in the sun,
Merv Flanagan, your name will live forever,
A worker and a battler for workers’ rights.