The Ballad of Now and Then

Down in Washington, the leaves start to fall Another deadline hangs over them all The Capitol dome, it stands cold and it stands grey While the congressmen argue the hours away They talk of the budget, the debt and the cost And for every line gained, another is lost The clock on the wall keeps on ticking toward zero Another shutdown, the forgotten hero. Oh, the headlines they fly and the stories they spin A new day begins where the old one has been

From the factory floor to the halls of the great It’s the same human struggle with fortune and fate And I sing you this ballad of now and of then So we might remember, and forget it again. Up in Detroit, where the motors once roared A new kind of silence the union has poured The UAW stands on the line in the cold A story of labor, a story as old Against the Big Three, with their profits and plans For a future of wires, not calloused hands

Shawn Fain speaks for thousands, their voices in one Demanding their share of the race before it is run. Oh, the headlines they fly and the stories they spin A new day begins where the old one has been From the factory floor to the halls of the great It’s the same human struggle with fortune and fate And I sing you this ballad of now and of then So we might remember, and forget it again. And a ghost in the wire learns to think and to write Weaving our words in the digital night

They call it 'progress,' a miracle age But the actor and artist are swept from the stage We built a new mind, but we don't know its soul And we wonder who's really losing control. Oh, the headlines they fly and the stories they spin A new day begins where the old one has been From the factory floor to the halls of the great It’s the same human struggle with fortune and fate And I sing you this ballad of now and of then So we might remember, and forget it again.