Who's Gonna Build Your Wall, Boys?



I got 800 miles of open border
Right outside my door
There's minutemen in little pickup trucks
Who declared their own dang war
Now the government wants to build a barrier like ol' Berlin, 8 feet tall

But if Uncle Sam sends the illegals home
Who's gonna build the wall

Who's gonna build your wall, boys
Who's gonna mow your lawn
Who's gonna cook your Mexican food
When your Mexican maid is gone

Who's gonna wax your floors tonight
Down at the local mall
Who's gonna wash your baby's face
Who's gonna build your wall

I ain't got no politics
So don't lay that rap on me
Left-wing, right-wing, up wing down
I see strip malls

It's the bad cat white developers
Who's created this whole damn squall
It's a pyramid scheme of dirty jobs
And who's gonna build your wall

...

We've got fundamentalist muslims
We've got fundamentalist jews
We've got fundamentalist Christians
That'll blow the whole thing up for you

But as I travel around this big ol' world
There's one thing that I most fear
It's a white man in a golf shirt
With a cell phone in his ear

Who's gonna build your wall, boys
Who's gonna mow your lawn
Who's gonna cook your Mexican food
When your Mexican maid is gone

Who's gonna wax your floors tonight
Down at the local mall
Who's gonna wash your baby's face
Who's gonna build your wall

Tom Russell

NPR - "The danger in the song was thinking I was taking a cheap shot at the government, which isn't where I'm at," Russell says. "I want to be honest about it — I don't have any politics one way or another. That just doesn't interest me. I turn my gun barrels on the people I dislike, which are white developers who have used these people and then are the first to jump on the bandwagon and say, 'Yeah, we gotta get rid of them now.'"

"Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?" will be featured on a new two-disc anthology entitled Veterans Day: The Tom Russell Anthology out Oct. 28.

This has been featured regularly on KPFT - Houston for about a year.


Gary Permalink on 9/07/2008