Tom Russell Follow

Homestead Pennsylvania, the home of the U.S. Steel
And the men down at the Homestead Works
Are sharing one last meal
Sauerkraut and kielbasa, a dozen beers or more
A hundred years of pouring slab,
They're closing down the door
And this mill won't run no more.

There's silence in the valley, there's silence in the streets
There's silence every night here upon these cold white sheets
Were my wife stares out the window with a long and lonely stare
She says "you kill yourself for 30 years but no one seems to care"

You made their railroads rails and bridges, you ran their driving wheels
And the towers of the Empire State are lined with Homestead Steel
The Monongahela valley no longer hears the roar
There is cottonwood and suemacway inside the slab mill door
And this mill won't run no more.