Two Good Men

Album: Ballads Of Sacco & Vanzetti (1945)
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  • Two good men a long time gone,
    Two good men a long time gone
    (Two good men a long time gone, oh, gone),
    Sacco, Vanzetti a long time gone,
    Left me here to sing this song.

    Say, there, did you hear the news?
    Sacco worked at trimming shoes;
    Vanzetti was a peddling man,
    Pushed his fish cart with his hands.

    Sacco was born across the sea
    Somewhere over in Italy;
    Vanzetti was born of parents fine,
    Drank the best Italian wine.

    Sacco sailed the sea one day,
    Landed up in Boston Bay;
    Vanzetti sailed the ocean blue,
    Landed up in Boston, too.

    Sacco's wife three children had,
    Sacco was a family man;
    Vanzetti was a dreaming man,
    His book was always in his hand.

    Sacco earned his bread and butter
    Being the factory's best shoe cutter;
    Vanzetti spoke both day and night,
    Told the workers how to fight.

    I'll tell you if you ask me
    'Bout this payroll robbery;
    Two clerks was killed by the shoe factory
    On the street in South Braintree.

    Judge Thayer told his friends around
    He would cut the radicals down;
    Anarchist bastards was the name
    Judge Thayer called these two good men.

    I'll tell you the prosecutors' names,
    Katsman, Adams, Williams, Kane;
    The judge and lawyers strutted down,
    They done more tricks than circus clowns.

    Vanzetti docked here in 1908;
    He slept along the dirty streets,
    He told the workers ?Organize?
    And on the electric chair he dies.

    All you people ought to be like me,
    And work like Sacco and Vanzetti;
    And every day find some ways to fight
    On the union side for workers' rights.

    I've got no time to tell this tale,
    The dicks and bulls are on my trail;

    But I'll remember these two good men
    That died to show me how to live.

    All you people in Suassos Lane
    Sing this song and sing it plain.
    All you folks that's coming along,
    Jump in with me, and sing this song. Writer/s: WOODY GUTHRIE
    Publisher: BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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