My Dad started east some time in the thirties
With the On-To-Ottawa men
He'd enough of the camps and the dole and the handouts
He wanted to work and to tie the loose ends
He drifted from factory to foundry to flop-house
The war sorted out what mere men could not
In Sudbury's forges he worked like a mad-man
Those years lost to hunger, Dad never forgot
I headed west when I had turned twenty
When the factories and foundries had closed
And in my minds eye I thought I might settle
Out here where my father was raised and was born
I worked as a jug-hound a rough-neck a bouncer
I worked where I wanted and I drew damn good pay
Saw no end to our luck and so we just pushed it
But O.P.E.C. and mortgages ate it away
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
Now it seems to me somehow this nation of migrants