Eight bucks an hour is plenty of pay
as long as you don’t need to eat every day.
Frisco, Los Angeles, New York too,
take your whole paycheck when the rent is due.
Many generations have fought for the right
to work eight hours and go home at night.
They fought for a paycheck to cover the nut,
food, shelter, healthcare, the basics, but
in spite of all of those battles won
it seems like the struggle has just begun.
“You’re waging class warfare!” the right’s accusing.
Well the war has been raging. And guess who’s losing!
The poor have to scramble after every dime.
Revolution? Who’s got the time?

Communism popped like a big soap bubble.
It’s capitalism that now is in trouble,
rotting inside like a moldy pear,
’cause the way that it works is so far from fair.
Money makes money, penny makes penny,
You’re out of luck if you don’t have any.
When you work all the time and you still can’t save,
you’re not a free person, you’re a virtual slave,
nose to the grindstone, you never get ahead,
work every day til you wake up dead.

The whole world over, workers have to fight,
’cause a living wage is a human right.
All over the world, change is way overdue:
Too many suffer for the good of the few.
A living wage for every person would sure
Help to close the gap between the rich and the poor.

But of violent revolution I never would sing
‘cause war is just more of the same damn thing.
We need a big change, but the change must start
in the loving kindness of the human heart.
Set a course toward justice and hold it steady.
Too many people have been hurt already.
If we can make a world where everybody’s fed,
everyone’s got a place to lay their head,
if we can make a world where we care for each other,
student for janitor, sister for brother,
maybe we can stop all this waste and war,
and keep from dying out like the dinosaur.
This species is heading for some heavy weather.
We’re only gonna make it if we stick together.