Heaven

Heaven

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.

Available on:

Wonder Wheel
The Klezmatics

Contact The Publisher
Woody Guthrie Publications Inc c/o Bug Music
7750 Sunset Boulevard / Los Angeles, CA 90046
Web site: www.bugmusic.com