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Song Lyrics:

• $5 Working People's Music Tape
• A LittleToo Much Sunshine
• Free Harbors
• It's Still the 60's
• The People Are In Charge!
• The Safe Thing To Do
• Sanctions
• The Contract

A Friend Like You  (All songs © 1997 by Ray Korona)

For more information, click Here. To listen, click Here.

TOUS ENSEMBLE

December of ‘95, most of France had had enough.

The so-called liberal president kept saying times are tough.

But everywhere you looked, the rich were getting more.

Everybody else was shown the door.

Tens of thousands out of work, now health care gets the axe.

Soon pensions will be sacrificed: Shut up and pay the tax.

The railroad workers vowed, "These ghouls can take a hike.

Get out on the street. We’re gonna strike!"

Chorus: Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble!

All together we will win.

Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble!

We can win together.

Just eight percent of workers were in unions now in France.

The railroad union could be crushed but still they took the chance.

And workers marched with homeless to bring down the elites.

Two million people filled the streets.

repeat chorus

Bridge: Nurses, teachers, artists, unemployed

Black, white, women and men

Here to take our country back again!

The trains are running now and the factory whistles blow.

From economic genocide, it’s back to status quo.

But it’s a different world--now they know we’re there.

Listen, you can hear it in the air.

repeat chorus

A FRIEND LIKE YOU

Voice 1: Now you write that you are coming back this way again

After so many years gone by.

Voice 2: Deep inside, I’m shaken to the core.

I never had a friend like you before.

Chorus (Both voices): Who are you, who am I?

What holds us together as the strongest waves go by.

When I’m sure I’ll never understand,

I touch your hand.

Voice 2: Distant drumming I heard calling drew me out to sea--

Seeking a place to light my soul.

Voice 1: Back here I still walk the same old ground.

Does either of us know where we are bound.

repeat chorus

Voice 1: Change your mind and change your plans; life goes on this way.

But who’d ever change a friend like you?

Voice 2: I know if my darkest hour came

You would be there calling out my name.

repeat chorus

Tag (alternating voices): A friend like you...

CALLING THE LAW

Let your roving eyes peruse that memo

And your free hand grab this report.

Make a move now back into your office.

Try your luck with those lines at a singles resort.

Chorus: The economy’s rough and I try to earn a living.

It’s hard enough with all the taking and giving.

I tell you right now you’re heading straight for a fall.

If there’s sexual harassment, I’m calling the law.

I’m not hear as your loving date

Or to help your libido unwind.

This is nine-to-five, not fantasy island.

Bring your newspaper here, leave your "Hustler" behind.

repeat chorus

You can let it loose in your bedroom;

Do your thing in a men’s room stall.

But when you come here on a work day,

It’s not okay for you to drool and paw.

repeat chorus

You can compliment me on my job skills

Not on how much you enjoy the view.

There are lots of things I’ve learned to put up with,

But I’ll tell you one of them sure isn’t you.

repeat chorus

Spoken tag.

ONE SONG FOR ME

Chorus: Won't you sing one song for me?

I'd like to sing one for you.

Soft as a snowflake; warm as a kiss.

We'll see the sun shining through!

Some nights the river's cold icy blue;

Some days it's green in the sun.

Sometimes I feel such hope in the world;

Sometimes I'm sure that we're done.

repeat chorus

I've seen those who wander around

Scattered like leaves in the breeze.

Some search for gold dust; some look for love.

Guess I'll just do what I please.

repeat chorus

May the stars and planets all glow

Spinning their magic tonight.

Let there be music loose in the world;

Good friends by sweet fire light.

repeat chorus

BALLAD OF JOE HOMELESS

Joe always worked hard come what may.

But he got sick for awhile, lost his pay.

So they dumped him on the street and oh...

In the city there’s a million miles of concrete

And Joe just can’t lie down to please his feet.

The block associations don’t want him on their street.

They’ve got the night sticks; they’ve got Joe beat.

Chorus: He keeps searching for a time and place

Where we can see each other in every living face.

Where there are no more desperate streets to roam

And everyone can find the way home.

Deep inside Joe’s got a story that must be told:

How bottles, cans and people’s lives are sold.

So many empty rooms, but he sleeps out in the cold.

If you don’t glitter, guess you’re not gold.

repeat chorus

Joe don’t read newspapers; they’re blankets for his bed.

Old matches and butts start fights--a man’s left dead.

A new friend lends a room. Now Joe’s inside and fed.

But his bed outside has found a new head.

repeat chorus: Let’s keep searching...

EXECUTIVE HILL

Reaching for a way to climb a little higher,

Eddie kept repeating how Harry should retire.

Liz told her boss Jim she’d save him from the fire

With some family money if he’d help her to conspire.

Ken is busy scheming about what to acquire--

Why every time you see him, he looks a little slyer.

Eddie didn’t make it ‘cause he couldn’t learn to dress.

Jim fled to Costa Rica rather than confess.

When the news reached Liz, she poured a double scotch.

Somehow in the confusion, Ken moved up another notch.

Chorus: Look out, Executive Hill.

Where you’ve got to run or attack--

Watch out for a stab in the back.

Seen you with your hand in the till!

Look out, Executive Hill.

When Eddie’s family left, he felt so crucified.

He’d done it all for them, but they couldn’t see his side.

The courtroom overflowed the day Ken testified:

He’d known about the defects, they showed how he had lied.

The big success was Liz but she keeps a lot inside

And sometimes when she drinks, she mentions suicide.

But the ads were good; the competition dwindled.

The dividends got bigger as the customers got swindled.

Jim bet on the elections-- he gave all he could afford.

Came back from Costa Rica as the chairman of the board!

Repeat chorus and add tag: Looked out, Xecutive Hill.

AMBROSIO

In a small Italian village so many years ago,

Ambrosio’s young class would sing and play.

From that little one room school house to the valleys and the hills

They still whistle those old tunes he taught today.

Chorus: Ambrosio! O bella musica!

I feel your spirit; it makes me sing.

I know somehow as this long road bends,

We’ll hold each other: eternal friends.

Soon the children learned this lesson: put love in all you do.

Just try your best and leave the rest to fate.

Some grew up to plant the fields; some had children of their own.

They found life is mostly music we create.

repeat chorus

On a balmy summer evening; the moon was high and full.

I walked out where the mountain meets the sea.

You could hear it in the ocean. It was shining from the stars.

I knew somehow his music lived in me.

repeat chorus

VISION OF PEACE

When I was quite young, I saw a strange sight.

It was no dream or trick of the mind:

A woman who seemed to be made out of light

Though her features were clearly defined.

She stood in the tall grass by a lake that warm night.

Her words felt so true and so kind.

Chorus: Will you live for peace? Will you sing for peace?

May your heart find peace.

Then war came about and everyone said

We were right and I really should go.

But pain and destruction and lives drowned in red

Was the terror I soon was to know.

And after a bad fight as they buried the dead,

I heard her voice crying so low.

repeat chorus

Now my friends and I say that wars must be banned

For the sake of all life everywhere.

But others tell us that we don’t understand--

They’re fighting to make the world fair.

But as bombs fall on people at some general’s command,

We’re chanting these words like a prayer.

repeat chorus

THE GREAT FOLK RIP-OFF

Intro:

As the pickers play,

Your pocket's picked.

Once again, you've been tricked

If you're a folk addict.

Verse:

Downstairs in the church basement

It seemed so innocent and quaint.

I guess I might have known

That tender singer was no saint.

She drove three hundred miles

To perform for us that night--

A little audience of seventeen.

Now you know something wasn't right.

Chorus:  Come on, sing along

             Soon we're closing down

             Sign the mailing list; buy a tape

             This folksinger's leaving town!

Eventually we realized

She played no instrument at all.

She called this a cappella.

I call it how she makes her haul.

She doesn’t spend a nickel

On guitar strings or a band.

She says her repertoire’s traditional--

Another word for second hand!

repeat chorus

There’s no doubt it’s a rip-off--

Just figure out the price per song.

To minimize the work,

She even made us sing along.

They asked for contributions

How incredibly unfair!

As she devoured her free cookies,

They said I should fold and stack my chair.

repeat chorus

She’s fabulous and famous.

I read that outside on her sign.

And she also sells tee shirts--

Just call her 1-800 line.

She said we all were so good

She’d sing us one more tune.

Then she asked who would put her up

Someplace where she could sleep until high noon!

double chorus