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A Tale of Deepest Sorrow

Tune:  “A Man of Constant Sorrow” as performed in the movie “O Brother Where Are Thou?

 

This is a tale of deepest sorrow, a tale to make you weep and moan.

Yes, it’s a tale of grief and sorrow, a tale to shake you to your bones.

 

In the town of Marion, North Carolina, back in 1929,

Textile workers there faced conditions that would leave a grown man cryin’.

 

Unsafe work and poor sanitation, child labor,  lousy pay,

Mean and disrespectful supervisors, six-day weeks, and twelve-hour days.

 

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So they organized into a union and the workers planned a strike,

But Sheriff Oscar Adkins and his henchmen lay in wait throughout the night.

 

In the morning right before the shift change, the strikers formed a picket line,

Marching up and down by the mill gates as they waved their picket signs.

 

Then the deputies released their tear gas and when the strikers ran away,

They shot their rifles at the fleeing workers, and they killed six men that day.

 

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Not a church in Marion would come forward to conduct their funeral.

So the grieving strikers took the coffins to a field down by the mill.

 

Out of the crowd stepped a preacher, by the name of Cicero Queens

He fell down to his knees before the gathering, and the words he spoke were these:

 

“O, Lord Jesus Christ, here are men in their coffins, blood of my blood, bone of my bone.

I trust, O God, that these friends will go to a better place than this mill village or any other place in Carolina.

 

O God, we know we are not in high society, but we know Jesus Christ loves us.

The poor people have their rights too.  For the work we do in this world, is this what we get when we demand our rights?

 

Jesus Christ, Your Son, O Lord was a working man.

If He were to pass under these trees today, He would see these cold bodies lying here before us.

 

O God mend the broken hearts of these loved ones left behind.  Dear God, do feed their children.

Drive selfishness and cruelty out of your world.

 

May these weeping wives and little children have a strong arm to lean on.

Dear God, what would Jesus do if He were to come to Carolina?”

 

This is a tale of deepest sorrow, a tale to make you weep and moan.

Yes, it’s tale of grief and sorrow, a tale to shake you to your bones,

A tale to shake you to your bones.

 

 

Copyright by Paul McKenna 2015