Intro: A B C# D E
A
My Dad started east some time in the thirties
B C# D E
With the On-To-Ottawa men
A
He'd enough of the camps and the dole and the handouts
B C# D E
He wanted to work and to tie the loose ends
Asus2
He drifted from factory to foundry to flop-house
B C# D E
The war sorted out what mere men could not
A
In Sudbury's forges he worked like a mad-man
B C# D E
Those years lost to hunger, Dad never forgot
A
I headed west when I had turned twenty
B C# D E
When the factories and foundries had closed
A
And in my minds eye I thought I might settle
B C# D E
Out here where my father was raised and was born
Asus2
I worked as a jug-hound a rough-neck a bouncer
B C# D E
I worked where I wanted and I drew damn good pay
A
Saw no end to our luck and so we just pushed it
B C# D E
But O.P.E.C. and mortgages ate it away
D E
Now the boom's gone to bust
A D
And we're down on the dole boys
B C# D E
No treasure laid up, for family and friends
D E A E
It's pull up stakes now or pull up stakes later
B C# D E
For labouring men the road never ends
Now it seems to me somehow this nation of migrants
From father to daughter, from mother to son
Must constantly shift from the east of the west
'Til we run out of work or of places to run
Gone now the days when you lived where your parents
And your parents before them were bred and were born
We must go where the work is to live any life boys
Bend like the willow to weather the storm
Now the boom's gone to bust
And we're down on the dole boys
No treasure laid up, for family and friends
It's pull up stakes now or pull up stakes later
For labouring men the road never ends
Yes the boom's gone to bust
And we're down on the dole boys
For labouring men the road never ends