fire of love now

The Triangle Shirt Waist Fire
http://mikestoutmusic.com

There they were, screaming from the windows;
Trapped like a herd, nowhere to go.
On the 8th and 9th floors, facing an inferno
Of heat and flames, in a living horror show.
Young women immigrants, trying to earn a living,
Brutally exploited in a place so unforgiving.
One door wass locked, the other was blocked;
The elevator crashed, the fire escape collapsed.
Choking from the smoke, unable to breathe;
The fire engines came, but the ladders didn't reach.

They started jumping, you could hear the thuds;
Sixty-two pools of mangled limbs and blood.
A hundred twenty-nine women, seventeen men,
Never see their friends or their families again.
When you don't have a union, you don't have a chance,
Death and injury will come to dance.
The ownerss, Blank and Harris, were arrested and tried,
With their money and slick lawyers, justice was denied.
But when the dead were laid to rest, a hundred-thousand came;
The New Deal was born, it was time for a change.

[Chorus]
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a call,
To wake up a movement, they died for us all.
For a safer workplace, an escape from poverty,
A decent living wage, a life with dignity;
'Fight for the living, mourn for the dead,'
It's time to do what Mother Jones said.
It's either race to the bottom, or take the struggle higher,
Don't let the lesson be forgotten or the shirtwaist fire,
Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

On the frontiers of the global wilderness,
At the Ha-Meem factory inside Bangladesh,
A mirror image from a century before;
No fire escape, blocked and locked doors,
Jumping from the windows of wage slavery,
Down into the sidewalks of eternity.
The causes well known, they can't be ignored,
Another callous owner like all the ones before.
Twenty-eight more who didn't have to die,
At the altars of greed just another sacrifice.

Working for the Gap, Wal-Mart and the rest,
In places like Honduras, China, Bangladesh,
For twenty cents an hour, seven days a week,
In a prison tower of a sweatshop factory;
Behind the fancy clothes and toys they want to sell ya,
There's been a hundred fires, they just don't ever tell ya.
After decades of struggle made things better than before,
They shut 'em down and move the jobs offshore.
Out of sight, out of mind they hope we never stop it,
While they wage their class war and rake in the profits.

[Chorus]
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was a call,
For a safer workplace, an escape from poverty,
A decent living wage, a life with dignity;
Fight for the living, mourn for the dead;
It's time to do what Mother Jones said.
It's either race to the bottom, or take this battle higher;
Don't let the lesson be forgotten, of the Shirtwaist fire,
Triangle Shirtwaist fire.