Ask Any Farmer - John McCutcheon

Come fill up your glasses and gather on around

And I’ll tell you the truth what’s a going on down

All through the country people sounding the alarm

Everyone’s a-wondering what’s happening on the farm

The businessman says, «Let the strongest ones survive»

But if he ain’t got food how’s he gonna stay alive

And the politician says, «Everything's a-getting better»

But you might as well be standing 'hind a compost spreader

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true

Now, I believe it all started 'bout a dozen years ago

Everybody scratching just to make a little dough

The bankers saw the land prices go high

So they went to the farmer, said, «Buy, buy, buy

«Don't you need a little money? Don’t you need a little loan?

«Don't you need some new machinery? A mortgage on your home?»

Then the land went down till everything’s a debit

And the banker came back, said, «You ain’t got the credit

«And I’d really like to help you, but it’s out of my control»

And now the farmer’s in hock, but the banker’s on a roll

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true

But all through time, I’m telling you

Trouble on the farm ain’t nothing new

It’s the fever or the government,

The flooding or the drought,

Hard times is something every farmer know about

How the cost goes up and the price goes down

Till you don’t get nothing when you haul it into town

But nobody’s worried yet, you got to understand

And now I’m gonna tell you when it really hits the fan:

When the farmer can’t pay for the low, low prices

And the banker’s in trouble, then we got a crisis

Uncle Sam steps in and the banker’s in clover

And the newspapers tell us that the trouble’s all over

And they call it a solution but the facts all mock it

'Cause the money all stays in the pin-striped pocket

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true

Then we sat down the farmer and we told him what to do

Said, «Feed the world and keep the price cheap, too!»

So he doubled the production, and he kept the prices down

By loading up on chemicals and spreading them around

Now you got cheap food and you know there’s plenty of it

Don’t taste like nothing but your checkbooks love it

And the topsoil washes and the land gets dry

And the farmer gets sick and the earthworms die

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true

You know, it’s mighty hard to figure and I’ll never understand

We got so much food and there’s hunger in the land

You might get a little bite of that surplus cheese

But most of that food is getting shipped overseas

Where it’s sold so cheap that the farmers over there

Go belly-up broke but we don’t care

'Cause the plan is for the food of all them nations

Be raised over here by big corporations

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true

They say you better get bigger or you better get out

The way to get bigger is for another to get out

They pit the farmers of the land against each other

When really we ought to be sisters and brothers

No, we’re never gonna make it until we realize

That we got to get together, yes, we got to organize

Stop killing our farmers, stop killing our land

Stop handing all the profits to the middle man

It’s like all this time we’ve been going to the till

Saying, «Charge it! And send my kids the bill!»

How they gonna make it? What they gonna do?

How they gonna pay it when the note comes due?

Just ask any farmer in Kansas

Ask any farmer in Carolina, too

Out in Dakota, Kentucky, Minnesota

And I guarantee you’ll find that what I’m telling you is true