Bruce Springsteen - Youngstown

Going through the online news today I ran into an article starting with the sentence "The people of Youngstown are fed up." Immediately, my mind went to playing Bruce Springsteen's 'Youngstown'. From the first time I heard the song it spoke to me ~ perhaps because I grew up in a coal-mining, steel-milling town, perhaps because the haunting lyrics and melody wormed their way into my mind, or perhaps because Bruce Springsteen's voice of velvet, rust and gravel just brings a lot of memories to life ... Whatever the reason, I'm sure the song will be playing on my mind for a while again ...

From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same

Youngstown
Bruce Springsteen

Here in north east Ohio
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Danny Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' yellow creek

They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannon balls
That helped the union win the war

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite, coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

Well my daddy come on the 0hio works
When he come home from world war two
Now the yards just scrap and rubble
He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for

Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name

In Youngstown
In Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown

When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heavens work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell

Songwriters: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, Downtown Music Publishing
For non-commercial use only.