Peter Hicks Web Site Songs by Jerzy Dymny
Special Feature! A selection of songs by Jerzy Dymny	Back to Songs Archive   Back to Browse Alphabetically   Back to Browse by Subject

We are very pleased to be able to feature on this page a number of songs by talented Canadian political activist and song writer, Jerzy Dymny. Jerzy has sent us us more fantastic songs that we can count! We'll be featuring about half a dozen or so at a time.

All of these songs contain original words set to what should be familiar melodies.

Chinese Deportee

Tune: Deportee, Woody Guthrie

The west is so rich and the laws are so rotten,
We send the boat migrants to refugee jails.
You don’t have to go there if you bring lots of  money,
You don’t have to hope someone will go your bail.

Chorus:
Goodbye to Fujian,  goodbye to Tsiamen,
We’re going to the sweatshops of New York and San Fran.
We won’t have a hope at the Canadian border,
The law will soon call us “Chinese deportee.”

Now the Tienanmen slaughter’s all but forgotten,
And forced labour camps are a capitalist’s dream.
Multinationals in China they're paying slave wages,
So we run from our nightmare to the amerikan dream.

Now, some of us are illegal and others not wanted,
And the sweatshops that hire will get more the next day.
They don’t give a damn if we’re brown, black or yellow,
As long as we’re too scared to give them away.  chorus:

The rust bucket we came in had no sanitation,
The food was all maggoty, the beds were four deep.
We lived on the decks in all but foul weather,
The stench down below was just too bad for sleep.

Three weeks out of Tsiamen we saw the blue mountains.
The great rain forests of northern B.C.
Then planes started buzzin’ and coast guard ships comin,
We started to worry ‘bout what was to be.        

Chorus

We’ve been sitting in jail for more’n four months now
We’re getting no help for to pay for our bail.
The ones that got out made the amerikan border,
And the rest of us rot in this barbed wire jail.

At the start of the century  we came to build railroads,
We dug in your mines and we died in your dust.
A hundred years later and nothing has changed much
The laws for us poor folks are still so unjust.

The Common Sense Revolution Makes No Sense

Tune: She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain

Chorus:
Oh, the ‘common sense revolution’ makes no sense   x2
It’s the people’s resolution to clear out this mind pollution
Cause the ‘common sense revolution’ makes no sense.

When Mike Harris* ran for office the first time
He said he’d watch the spending of each and every dime
There’d be lots of privatization but no cuts to education
And no workers would be on the picket line.

Now we’ve had about seven years of this bullshit
‘Welfare criminals’ have been his biggest hit.
His own workfare legislation is reducing job creation
So this kind of ‘common sense’ has got to quit

Now we always used to have a hospital plan
But old Mikey he just doesn’t give a damn
Hospitals forced to watch their purses,
Laid off way too many nurses
Now they can’t get them to come back here again.

Rent controls were lifted so we’d all compete
For all the housing that the builders would complete.
But the landlords liked evictions,
they raised rents with great conviction,
Folks are dying now on all of our streets.

Then Mike strangled funding to all of our schools
And his testing’s turning children into fools.
He can’t even run clean water, so he’s running from the slaughter,
And the Tories are gonna get at the  polls.

* a penny pinching premier of Ontario who just retired in ignominy, to be replaced by his penny-pinching conservative finance minister.

Collectively written at the Labour Studies Songs of Struggle workshop, May 1999 M.L.E.C. conducted by Smokey.

Haul Away Jokers

Tune: Haul Away Joe
Am Em Dm Em

Oh, when I was a little lad my teachers they all told me:
“Trust, trust in us, we’ll never let you down”
That if I learned my history, pure knowledge would enfold me,
“Trust, trust in us, we’ll never let you down”

Oh, once I had a National Dream,  it damn near drove me crazy, Trust
But politicians screwed it up they are so fat and lazy. Trust, trust...

They sold us for a U.S. deal so rich and full of splendour, *
They started firing union folk; they were so kind and tender.

Oh, once I screwed the farmers though they fed me like a mother,
But now I pick on immigrants and they pick on each other.

“Trust, trust in us, this country we’ll dismember,”
“Trust, trust in us, we hope you won’t remember.”

The World Trade Org’nization’s s’posed to bring us all together,
But the people went to old Québec &  got out the tar and feathers,

“Trust, trust in us, the country’s hopes are falling,”
“Trust, trust in us, the corporate bums are calling.”

Oh, when I was a little lad my teachers they all told me:
But now I’ve learned my history pure bullshit does enfold me.

Home, Home's Where I'll Stay

Tune: Home, Home On The Range
D G A7

Oh give me a home, ‘cause I don’t want to roam,
From the streets to the shelter each day.
I’m tired and I’m sick of your government’s tricks
And I just need a safe place to stay.

Home, home’s where I’ll stay,
Where the kids and the neighbours can play.
With a fire in the stove and my slippers and robe,
And clean sheets at the end of the day.

Oh. give me a home, instead of your Dome,
And a song not a new Opera House.
A rec’ centre that’s free, no Olympics for me,
‘Cause your plans were drawn up by a louse!

Oh, give me a home where I feel I belong,
And a rent that we all can afford.
Where we all have a voice, equal say, equal choice.
And finally we’re our own landlord.

There were a number of disputes and lawsuits over authorship of this song in the 19th century. The probable authors are Brewster Higley & Dan Kelly This version collectively written at the “No Place Like Home” 3rd Conference Toronto, Sept. 1989. Workshop by Smokey Dymny.

I Ain't a-Loggin' Any More

I logged when I first came to the New Found Land                G - D -
I cut masts for the growing fishing war.                        G - D -
A young land was a-growin’, the trees started fallin’,       G Am F Em
But I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.                                  C - D - //:
I felled all the trees by the St. Lawrence shores,
To clear land for a thousand Seigneuries,
I saw many trees a-lyin’ I saw many more a-burnin’,
But I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.
Chorus:
Cause it’s always the trees that die when people come,             C G
Always the biggest that fall.
C G Am
Take a look at what we’ve felled; all we’ve wasted and despoiled,  C G
Tell me was it worth it all?
C D

Then I cut Upper Canada for ships and for more farms,
I cut for the mines and for the rail.
Oh, we just kept on a-felling and we didn’t hear the warnings,
But I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.
Then we rode through the prairies &  killed all the buffalo
We moved on to the mighty western shore.
There the trees were so giant our saws never stopped a-flyin’,
But I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.

Now we search far and wide for more trees we can exploit,
We hardly plant and never plan ahead.
We use mighty helicopters and giant bladed choppers,
But I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.
Now, I ain’t sayin’ wood ain’t a nice thing in your home,
But to burn it up is not the way to go,
And we’re wasting immense acres just for cardboard & for paper,
So,  I ain’t a-loggin’ anymore.

We can’t trust politicians to preserve environment.
They make deals and they work behind closed doors.
They make promises to clean up to diversify and replant, they say:
“We ain’t a-loggin’ any more.”
You can’t let the power pass into their useless hands.
The corporations have them all in knots.
We gotta stay in the forefront, don’t give up, it’s what they want, just
say: “We ain’t a-loggin’ any more.”

Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die (Again!)

This next song has some nasty lines, & I don’t want you to think I make this stuff up, so here’s what the Rev. Jerry Falwell, of the The 700 Club, said on TV Sept 13, 2001

“The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, .... all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say “You helped this to happen.’”

Tune: Joe MacDonald, Fixing To Die

Come on all you big strong men                  G -
Uncle Sam needs your help again                 C -
He’s got himself in another jam                         G -
Way down yonder in Afghanistan                  C -
He wants to find a terrorist cell                               A D
So he’s gonna bomb the country to hell!         G7 C

And it’s 1,2,3, what’re we fighting for?                D7 G7 C -
Whoopee let’s get that man,                             G7
Osama Bin Laden                                         C
And it’s 5,6,7, open up the pearly gates,               D7 G7 C -
There ain’t no time to wonder why,                      A D
Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!                           G7 C

Come on, generals, don’t be slow
It’s the New World Order, don’t you know
We’ve got to show them that we’re right
And brains don’t matter when it comes to might
Let’s bomb then into the new stone age
So we’ll get rid of our rage!

C’mon NATO we’ll drag you along
If we go it alone we might look wrong.
We’re the biggest bully on the whole damn block
And we want our friends to walk our walk.
Who cares if we start a nuclear war
That’s what enemies are for.

Come on mothers, don’t think twice                      G -
Be a patriot - or you’re not nice!                      C -
Those commie faggots are at our door,           G -
Whoops! that was another war,                           C -
Whoever they are, they’re not white                     A D
And that’s what makes us right.                 G7 C
Those Moslem crazies are at our door,
Onward Christians, off to war!
We want to control the whole Mid-East
So we can buy our oil in peace.                    
If you don’t agree, then sell your car, 
It’s the reason for the war.                

I Walk The Line

Tune: I Walk The Line (Johnny Cash)

I keep a close watch on this boss of mine.
He’s got his hand in my pockets all the time.
He thinks that wages should be the tie that binds, ( or: )
He thinks our salaries should be brought into line,
But I’m not blind, I walk the line
                                C  G7  C / G7  C / F  C / G7  C

Not a word that the boss has said is true.
So we’re outside, just frozen cold and blue.
But we don’t care, we won’t be left behind,
‘Cause we’re not blind, we walk the line.

I find it very, very easy to be free.
I get my strength from solidarity.
‘Cause I am bound with others of my kind,
And we’re not blind, we walk the line.

Now we’re unionists walking on the line.
We won’t sit still & take the bosses dimes.
Yes, we will fight and not be left behind,
‘Cause we’re not blind, we walk the line.

repeat verse 1

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