The Big House Lyrics

They’re bringing home the farm boys in these polished cedar boxes
To lay them in the orchard, by the wall beneath the yew
And every year the flowers grow and mothers come to take them
And sit at silent tables staring out across the fields

And the men up in the big house send their captains and surveyors
And the young men of the village take the journey to the wood
Where they cut and dress the timbers. Open fire and follow orders
And they lay them down in boxes, in the orchard home for good

And the men up in the big house sell them tools to do their labor
And they place their curse upon them and their tax upon their neighbor
And they beat them in the market square and steal the gold they lend them
They kill them in the timberyards, the hell to which they send them

Timberyards

In the timber yards, we pray for night and curse the day
In the timber yards, do the work, take the pay

Somebody’s son, these boxes

And the men up in the big house come at night to see the mothers
And they force their seed within them when the menfolk are away
And they drag them off in tractors to the fields of their fathers
And bind them fast as oxen, to work until they die