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Song: The Long Greenchain
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Green lumber was carried out of the mill on a conveyor belt that was continuously in motion, forcing workers to perform at a backbreaking pace as they pulled boards off the greenchain, sorted them, and threw them onto separate piles. These repetitive tasks often resulted in severe back, shoulder, and arm injuries.

Even though the job was so physically demanding, greenchain workers were paid the lowest wages and had the least status in the mill because they required no special skills, only strength and stamina. The industrial slavery they endured is clearly expressed in the lyrics of The Long Greenchain.

Download MP3 of The Long Greenchain (3.3 MB)

A version of this song can be found in Songs of the Pacific Northwest by Philip J. Thomas (UBC Website Link).

Long Green Chain

Words by J.F. "Jim" Monroe
Music: Unknown.

You who live a life of leisure, you who live a life of ease
From your mansions in the city to your yacht upon the sea
Does your conscience ever picture on the tablet of your brain
The sad thought men in misery out on the long green chain

When the ponds are full of timber, Jack-ladder's running wild
The sawyer in his carriage has the bandsaw set and filed
From the headrig to the trimsaw, through the planer moves the chain
Of that endless pile of lumber out on the long green chain

(Chorus) No never, no never, never again
Will I go working on that long, that long green chain

See the grader eye the lumber as it moves along the chain
With his keel he makes the grading, marks it down for knot and grain
These salutes to profiteering we treat with complete disdain
For what's it mean to those of us who work out on the chain

When the shift boss hits the button you'd better look alive
'Cause the lumber it comes rolling like the bees out of a hive
And you'll feel your sweat come pourin' as each muscle screams with pain
And you'll wonder if it's worth it working on the chain

(Chorus)

Now when I go to meet my maker there’s just one hope I hold
That Saint Peter at the golden gate won't leave me in the cold
But if he sends me down below the truth to you I'll tell
I still won't be unhappy 'cause that green chain's worse than hell

(Chorus) (Chorus)

Vocabulary

Bunyans - Paul Bunyan, legendary logger

chain - greenchain

Golden gate - entrance to heaven

Maker - God