Black Thursday

© 1996 Stephen Savitzky. CC-by-nc-sa.\  verse to the tune of Wildwood Flower (trad.)

Lyrics [pdf] [txt] [cho]

Have you heard of Black Thursday; that terrible day
When the Telecom Bill stole our freedom away
The right to free speech in the land of the brave
Was sent by that bill to an untimely grave.
G D7 G C
Tell me,  what did  you  do when Black  Thursday came?
D7 G D6
Did you turn your  page  black; did you  send in your name?
G D7 G C D7 G
Did you  turn out  for  freedom, or  just turn  your  back
C G D7 G D7 G
Tell me, what did  you  do when  the  Net  went  black?
It was all through the morning that cold winters' day
That we waited for the President to sign our rights away.
Then the word it came down of his dastardly act;
And all through the Web peoples' pages turned black.

Now we wear our blue ribbons for freedom of speech,
And we're spreading the word to the Net's farthest reach.
Now we work toward the day when our leaders take not
That the Net folk love freedom and know how to vote!

When the Nazis torpedoed the Ruben James, Woody Guthrie dusted off the tune for Wildwood Flower, wrote new lyrics, and added a rabble-rousing chorus. I figure the First Amendment deserves nothing less.