A TOAST TO THOSE WHO ARE GONE by Phil Ochs submitted by Andrea Baroni (baroni_andrea@hotmail.com) Standard tuning C Am Many's the hour I've lain by my window C Am and thought of the people who carried the burden C Am Who marched in the strange fields in search of an answers C Am G And ended their journeys an unwilling hero Am Em Am G Here's a song to those who are gone with never a reason why Em Am And a toast of the wine at the end of the line D7 G And a toll of the bell for the next one to die Back in the coal fields of old Harlan county Some talked of the union, some talked of good wages And they lined them up in the dark of the forests And shot them down without asking no questions Here's a song to those who are gone with never a reason why And a toast of the wine to the end of the line And a toll of the bell for the next one to die And over the ocean, to the red Spanish soil came the lincoln brigade with their dreams But they fell in the fire of germany's bombing And they fell 'cause no one would hear their sad warning Here's a song to those who are gone with never a reason why And a toast of the wine at the end of the line And a toll of the bell for the next one to die In old Alabama, in old MississippiTwo states of the union so often found guilty They came on the busses, they came on the marches And they lay in the jails or they fell by the highway Here's a song to those who are gone with never a reason why And a toast of the wine at the end of the line And a toll of the bell for the next one to die The state it was texas, the town it was Dallas In the flash of a rifle a life was soon over And nobody thought of the past million murders And the long list of irony(?) had found a new champion Here's a song to those who are gone with never a reason why And a toast of the wine at the end of the line And a toll of the bell for the next one to die