Joe Worker  from The Cradle Will Rock by Mark Blitzstein

Listen,  Here’s a story.

Not much fun and not much glory;

Low-class, low-down,

the thing you never care to see until there is a showdown.

Here it is.  I’ll make it snappy.

Are you ready?  Everybody Happy?

Joe Worker gets gypped.  For no good reason, just gypped.

From the start, until the finish comes,

They feed him from the garbage cans, They breed him in the slums.

Joe Worker will go

To shops where stuff is on show,

He’ll look at the meat,  He’ll look at the bread

and too little to eat sort of goes to the head.

One big question inside me cries:

How many fakers, peace undertakers, paid strike-breakers,

How many toiling, ailing, dying, piled up bodies,

BROTHER DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU WISE?

So, do you still believe?