OLD DOLLAR ALARM CLOCK (JOHN HEALY) (1910s)
Tune: "By the Old Wooden Bucket" (trad.)

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First published in the 1918 edition of the Industrial Worker "Little Red Songbook."

How dear to my heart are those chimes in the morning,
That yank me from bed with melodious thrill;
How sweet is the sound of the regular warning,
That yells that it's time that I hike to the mill.
Without it I'd sleep till the sun had arisen,
Be late to the job that my boss lets me use;
Get canned, perhaps steal, maybe land in a prison,
If the chimes didn't hustle me out of my snooze.

CHORUS:
The faithful alarm clock,
The rattling alarm clock,
The dollar alarm clock
That rests on my shelf.

What a blessing it was when the thing was invented:
It beats the slave-driver who came with his stick.
It rests on the shelf in the shack that I rented;
It never gets hungry, it never gets sick.
If overly weary I take a tin bucket
And place the alarm clock down into the thing;
When it chimes in the morning it doubles the racket;
It would wake up the dead when the two of them ring.

Sometimes the good woman gets worn and weary
And says we are hauling too much of a load.
I tell her the journey would look still more dreary
If the dollar alarm clock should fail to explode.
Then here's to my booster that only needs winding;
And here's to the victim that just keeps alive.
The boss gets the money and I do the grinding;
The clock starts the circus at quarter past five.

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