U.S. Steel

Homestead, Pennsylvania, the home of US Steel

And the men down at the Homestead works are sharing one last meal

Sauerkraut and kielbasa, a dozen beers or more

A hundred years of pouring slab, they're closing down the door

And this mill won't run no more

There's silence in the valley, there's silence in the street

There's silence every night here upon these cold white sheets

Where my wife stares out the window with a long and lonely stare

She says, "You killed yourself for 30 years but no one seems to care"

You made their railroad rails and bridges, you ran their driving wheel

And the towers of their Empire State are lined with Homestead steel

The Monongahela Valley no longer hears the roar

There's cottonwood and sumac weed inside the slab mill door

And this mill won't run no more

So me, I'll sit in Hess's Bar and drink my life away

God bless the second mortgage and the unemployment pay

And my ex-boss Mr. Goodwin, he keeps shaking my one good hand

He said, "Son, it's men like me and you who built the promised land"

We made their railroad rails and bridges, we ran their driving wheel

And the towers of their Empire State are lined with Homestead steel

The Monongahela Valley no longer hears the roar

There's cottonwood and sumac weed inside the slab mill door

And this mill won't run no more