Heaven
Words by Woody Guthrie, 1947, Music by Paul Morrissett (The Klezmatics), 2003
Contact Publisher - Woody Guthrie Publications/BMG Chrysalis
It’s after my work tired and weary, I lay down to rest my eyes,
I see this world change in a whirlwind and heaven flies down from the skies;
I see rising up from my wreckage cities and mansions so bright
I see my friends eyes and their faces lit up with a bright shining light.
I walk through the sunshiny factory where dresses and shirts are both clean;
A brother and sister are singing at work as they watch all the wheels;
No smudge clouds of smoke hide my valley, my sky it is clear for miles;
The mountains are all dancing happy, the trees are waving me smiles.
There are no sickly faces about me, the children are healthy and gay;
Not one homeless soul is around me, nor lost, nor cripple nor lame;
The street laid in finest of plastics, the atom is laboring as well;
No airships are crashing here by me, no dead ones in burning hotels.
No fast cars collide nor turn over, no death curve along my new road;
No cheaters, no gamblers, no robbers, no graveyard, no prisons, no jails;
No gasbombs, no brass knucks, no billies, no battles ‘tween worker and boss;
No patrolmen, no officer, policeman, to ride into crowds on his horse.
The last labor battles are ended, they’re shown on the screen and the page;
The workhand is happy at building his world like the play on his stage;
Profiteers are gone and forgotten, except in my history and book;
My friends all have jobs here in heaven and sing as I stand here and look.
I am sawing the finest made fiddle, I am touching the richest skin drum;
I am blowing the sweetest of woodwinds and blowing the deepest of horns;
I dance to my music I’m making, and the world joins in with my dance;
Science and hope cures the fevers, not one grain is blowing by chance.
Every hand works in hand with the other and not for power nor greed;
Every hand works to its fullest ability and is paid in its deepest of need;
No cancer, no tubercolosis, no paralysis nor asylums are here
No bowery nor skid row of homeless, no eye that is blinded by tears.
If you can only see with me this vision of heaven I dreamed,
Then you can take new faith in working with comrades and friends
And when I woke up from my sleeping and looked down my raggedy street,
I go back to work with my vision and I drink down the bitter and sweet.
I know as you hear such a dream, friend, you will not pass it along;
I do not expect you to sing it as I do, nor to sing such a curious song;
I wrote down this song for my own self, and sing it now to my own soul.
But if you’ll sing songs of your dreamings, then you will reap treasures untold.
© Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & Paul Morrissett (BMI)
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