A Toast to Those Who Are Gone

[Verse 1]
Many's the hour I've lain by my window
And thought of the people who carried the burdens
Who marched in the strange fields in search of an answer
And ended their journeys an unwilling hero

[Chorus]
So here is a song to those who are gone
With never a reason why
And a toast of the wine at the end of the line
And a toll of the bell for the next one to die

[Verse 2]
Back in the coal fields of old Harlan County
Some talked of a union, some talked of good wages
And they lined them up in the dark of the forest
And shot them down without asking no questions

[Chorus]
So here is a song to those who are gone
With never a reason why
And a toast of the wine at the end of the line
And a toll of the bell for the next one to die

[Verse 3]
And over the ocean, to the red Spanish soil
Came the Lincoln Brigade with their dreams of a victory
But they fell in the fire of Germany's bombings
And they fell 'cause nobody would hear their sad warning

[Chorus]
So here is a song to those who are gone
With never a reason why
And a toast of the wine at the end of the line
And a toll of the bell for the next one to die

[Verse 4]
In old Alabama, in old Mississippi
Two states of the Union so often found guilty
They came on the busses, they came on the marches
And they lay in the jails or they fell by the highways

[Chorus]
So here is a song to those who are gone
With never a reason why
And a toast of the wine at the end of the line
And a toll of the bell for the next one to die

[Verse 5]
The state it was Texas, the town it was Dallas
In the flash of a rifle a life was soon over
And nobody thought of the past million murders
And the long list of irony had found a new champion

[Chorus]
So here is a song to those who are gone
With never a reason why
And a toast of the wine at the end of the line
And a toll of the bell for the next one to die