The Cradle Will Rock

[Larry Foreman, spoken]
This crowd here
Heighten up there in the cradle of the Liberty Committee

(sung)
Up on the top most bound of yonder tree now
Like bees in their hive
The lord and their lackeys and wives
A swinging rock-a-bye baby
In a nice big cradle

Then they remark the air is chilly up there
The sky beetle brown
Can that be a cloud over there
And then they put up their hands
And feel stormy weather

A birdy ups and cries
Boys this looks bad
You haven’t use your eyes
You wish you had

That’s thunder
That’s lightning
And it’s going to surround you
No wonder
Those storm birds
Seems to circle around you
Well you can’t climb down and you can’t sit still
That’s a storm that’s gonna last until
The final wind blows
And when the wind blows
The cradle will rock

That’s thunder
That’s lightning
And it’s going to surround you
No wonder
Those storm birds
Seems to circle around you
Well you can’t climb down and you can’t say no
You can’t stop the weather
Not with all your dough
For when the wind blows
And when the wind blows
The cradle will rock

(spoken)
The cradle will rock
Do you think we don't know what that fight tonight's about?
Why Murphy from the rolling mill and Brown from the rougher and Young from the boilermaker
Is all sitting together in union headquarter
Why more people than Steeltown ever saw at one time were all crawling around in the square
Those boys don't know it but they're fighting our fight too
They're making onions grow all over the land where nothing but cactus grew before
And they'll have the machinists and the blasters with them before the week is out
You try and stop'em

[Ensemble, spoken]
1: Did he say onions?
2:Yes, but he means Unions

[Larry Foreman, spoken]
Did you see the people? The tonnes of them?
And the order, the quiet
I lost my [?] as the crowd of boilermakers bunch together with their wives and their kids on one side of the square
And their kids all had bugles

I'll find her blowing the bugles I guess
Unless they pull her in for carry and conceal deadly leaflets
Hold two gun gesture herself

And on the other side of the square
The roughers with their kids
And their kids had drums

[Ensemble, spoken]
1: I saw them. And in the middle of the square where the rolling mill workers and their kids were out in front too with fifes.

[Larry Foreman, spoken]
Do you know what it takes to keep a kid from blowing his bugle and banging his drum?
They're all there now, not making a sound
Just waiting
Waiting
Ready to strike up the band as soon as they hear the good news

[Ensemble, spoken]
1: I asked one little boy why he wasn't playing his fife and he said to me, he said "Mister, that's discipline"

[Larry Foreman, spoken]
Ugh tonight's the night
Oh boy
If they get together
Oh boy oh boy oh boy
Goodbye open shopping Steeltown
Hello closed shop

[Moll, spoken]
What's the difference?

[Larry Foreman, spoken]
The difference?
Open shop is when a boilermaker can be kicked around
Demoted
Fired like that
He's all alone
He's free
Free to be wiped out

Closed shop
He's got fifty thousand other boiler makers behind him ready to back him up
Everyone of them to the last lunch pail

The difference?
It's like the five fingers in your hand

Now that's the boilermakers
Just one finger
(laugh)
But this
Rollers, roughers, machinists, blasters, boilermakers
That's closed shop
That's a Union
Oh boy oh boy oh boy

[Ensemble, spoken]
(making gibberish sound)