6. The Factory | Romina Di Gasbarro

World War II is over. The fire of fascism is reduced to crumbled embers. The dictator hangs, the monarchy runs, the Pope hides, and the people are left again to rise from the ashes. Once again, there is a new promise: this time it is called, “Industry.” Finally there is the hope and desire to dream. Machines push the world into the future and the prospects look shiny and liberating. The peasant, hungry for prosperity, emigrates again: to the north, to the west…to any land of opportunity. They work hard, and they dream big! They know what they leave. They don’t know what they leave behind.

6. THE FACTORY (Full Steam Ahead)
Romina (voice, guitar), Elmer Ferrer (guitar), Roberto Occhipinti (double bass), Larnell Lewis (kalimba, drums)

Tick tock teams
and fire machines
black smoke puffs up
American dreams
Oh, the wheels grind hard
and the smoke puffs high
and it shoots like a rocket
through the radio night

Metal rods rise
through the liberty boom
and bombers fly high
through the big band tunes
They’ve got blue suede shoes
and a fine leather coat
and a Fiat 500
and girls that smoke (oh, yeah!)

Leave the farm and the family
cut your loss and the slavery
10 hours a day and weekends free
and vacation paid and base salary
Oh, the shiny new world, of The Factory.

3, 2, 1,
and a firing gun
rising up to the sky
like a hard, hard one
But it’s dark in the morning
and it’s dark at night
and your world grows dark
where there used to be sunlight

Remember the farm and the family
The mountain air and field songs in harmony
10 hours a days of the same monotony
for vacation pay and growing fees
Oh, the shiny new world…

…the shiny new world, the shiny new world…of The Factory

Twist left, loop one
Screw/hook right, another one
Again, again, again, again
it’s never, never done
Just a little spot cog
In the big machine
You’re a cog in your own life
and a cog in your own “dream”

Remember the soil, field and trees
When you watered, snipped and pulled her weeds
til the fruit grew ripe, and pure and sweet
then the harvest reaped, until you dropped another seed
Oh, the shiny new world, of The Factory.