Intro A5 B5 C#5 D5 E5 A5 My Dad started east some time in the thirties B5 C#5 D5 E5 With the On-To-Ottawa men A5 He'd enough of the camps and the dole and the handouts B5 C#5 D5 E5 He wanted to work and to tie the loose ends A5 He drifted from factory to foundry to flop-house B5 C#5 D5 E5 The war sorted out what mere men could not A5 In Sudbury's forges he worked like a mad-man B5 C#5 D5 E5 Those years lost to hunger, Dad never forgot A5 I headed west when I had turned twenty B5 C#5 D5 E5 When the factories and foundries had closed A5 And in my minds eye I thought I might settle B5 C#5 D5 E5 Out here where my father was raised and was born A5 I worked as a jug-hound a rough-neck a bouncer B5 C#5 D5 E5 I worked where I wanted and I drew damn good pay A5 Saw no end to our luck and so we just pushed it B5 C#5 D5 E5 But O.P.E.C. and mortgages ate it away D5 E5 Now the boom's gone to bust A5 D5 And we're down on the dole boys B5 C#5 D5 E5 No treasure laid up, for family and friends D5 E5 A5 E5 It's pull up stakes now or pull up stakes later B5 C#5 D5 E5 For labouring men the road never ends Now it seems to me somehow this nation of migrants From father to daughter, from mother to son Must constantly shift from the east of the west 'Til we run out of work or of places to run Gone now the days when you lived where your parents And your parents before them were bred and were born We must go where the work is to live any life boys Bend like the willow to weather the storm Now the boom's gone to bust And we're down on the dole boys No treasure laid up, for family and friends It's pull up stakes now or pull up stakes later For labouring men the road never ends Yes the boom's gone to bust And we're down on the dole boys For labouring men the road never ends
