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E. Song: "Canning Salmon"
This song is recorded on the cassette tape included with this
book.
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Canning
Salmon
by Linda Chobotuck © 1985
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The guys on the dock
laze around, race the forklift
and sass the floor lady till it's time for
their tea
They sit at the table by the window that opens
and they get
paid a buck more an hour than me |
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CHORUS:
High is the smell, low
is the pay
long are the hours, why do we stay?
Somewhere outside a
whole summer slips away
while we're stuck in here canning salmon |
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The machinery's so loud that we say we've
gone can-deaf
[The] shift is long over before we can hear
They keep the
noise level just under the limit
So they don't have to buy us the right
safety gear |
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CHORUS: |
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First we can spring so heavy our arms ache
Then we do sockeye which we pack with ease
Then we do pinks, all mashed
up and rotten
So they're packed up in pound tins and shipped overseas
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CHORUS: |
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Last night we were waiting for a boat on the
Fraser
So they kept us on line, just standing around
We didn't know
that outside on the river
the boat had flipped over, two men had drowned
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High is the cost, low is the pay
long are
the hours, why do we stay?
Somewhere outside a whole summer slips away
while we're stuck in here canning salmon |
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From Split/Shift: Songs and Poems of the Workplace.
Performed by Fraser Union. © 1989 Fraser Union with the Vancouver
Industrial Writers' Union. Used by permission. |