Cantastoria

YOU SOULS OF BOSTON

You souls of Boston, bow your heads,
Our two most noble sons are dead.
Sacco and Vanzetti both have died,And drifted out with the Boston tide.
'Twas on the outskirts of this town,
Some bandits shot two pay clerks down,
On old Pearl Street in South Braintree,
And they grabbed that money and rolled away.
Sacco and Vanzetti got arrested then,
On a trolley car by the plain clothed men,
Carried down to Brockton jail,
And laid away in a lonesome cell.
The folks in Plymouth town did sayVanzetti sold fish in Suassos Lane.
His fish cart was thirty-two miles away
From old Pearl Street this fatal day.
Sacco's family hugged and kissed their dad,
Said, "Take this family picture to the passport man.
"He was in that office, forty odd miles away
From old Pearl Street this fatal day.
One lady by the name of Eva SplaineSaw the robbers jump in their car and drive away.
For a second and a half she seen this speeding car,
She swore Sacco was the bandit man.
It was twenty, or thirty, or fifty more,
Said Sacco was not in the robber's car.
Judge Webster Thayer stuck by Eva Splaine,
Said Sacco was the guilty man.
Mrs. Sacco was heavy then with child,
She walked to Sacco's cell and cried.
The Morelli gang just down the corridorsigned confessions they killed the payroll guards.
"We seen Mrs. Sacco pregnant there,
We heard her cry and tear her hair.
We had to ease our guilty hearts
And admit we killed the payroll guards."
Judge Webster Thayer could not allow
The Morelli gang's confession to stop him now.
Sacco and Vanzetti are union men,
And that verdict, guilty, must come in.
The bullet expert took the stand,
Said the bullets from the bodies of the two dead men
Could not have been fired from Sacco's gun
Nor from Vanzetti's gun have come.
It was sixty-three days this trial did last;
Seven dark years come a-cripplin' past,
Locked down in that mean old Charlestown jail,
Then by an electric spark were killed.
Old Boston City was a dark old town,
That summer's night in August the switch went down,
People they cried and marched and sung,
Every tongue this world around.

parole di Woody Guthrie (anche in fotografia)

La Canzone è tratta dall'album Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti.