We never left
old Pullman Town.
Rent goes up as
the wage comes down.
Same man sells our bread
as sets our pay.
No sir, we never left
ol’ Pullman Town.
The man is gone,
but the ghost’s still ’round –
rattling a long,
crooked chain.
Twelve thousand
sober, neat and clean.
Productive in our dignity.
Working man
nothing like a slave.
Oh, but Pullman he first
earned his fame,
his name upon
the train that raced
The Great Emancipator
to his grave.
We never left
old Pullman Town…
The Pullman church was called
Greenstone –
solid as the return
on a Pullman loan.
Blessed with water
from the Pullman well.
Brought up in the Pullman schools.
Worked our jobs with Pullman tools.
And when we die, we’ll burn in
a Pullman Hell.
Oh, now we’ve never left
old Pullman Town…
Waiting as his death came down
to rip that corpse right
from the ground.
This could be the last thing
he learned.
Had his family bury his coffin deep
in railroad ties and concrete
and we thought that
son of a bitch
would never return.
Oh, but we never left
old Pullman Town.
Rent goes up as
the wage comes down.
Same man sells our bread
as sets our pay.
No sir, we never left
ol’ Pullman Town.
The man is gone,
but the ghost’s still ’round –
rattling a long,
crooked chain.
We’re still living in
that big old
Pullman Town today.
© 1999.