You don't know what hard times are, daddy
Hard times are when the textile workers
around this country are out of work
They got four or five kids and can't pay their wages
can't buy their food
Hard times are when the auto workers are
out of work and they tell 'em go home
And hard times are when a man has worked
at a job thirty years, thirty years
They give him a watch, kick him in the butt
And say, "Hey, a computer took your place, daddy"

This place don't smell like Winston's and whiskey no more
Thе feet don't creep and creak the
hard oak of a harmonious floor
And Grandma's old garden ain't what it usеd to be
There's rats on tomatoes and holes in the leaves
Fell in the yard where Granddad parked his car
Before driving us to drive-ins and breaking our hearts
Them quarters quit coming, that engine quit running
And that truck just stayed sitting
with six kids in the kitchen
Even though he was well-trained, well-read, and worked hard

The robot killed the working man
Took the nail and hammer right out of his hands
Sealed up the coffin, sold off the land
Replaced the good book with machines in their hands
Sooner or later, more soon than not
Them homegrown tomatoes all ripe and then rot
With no rhyme or reason, no helping hand
The day the robot killed the working man

And this place don't look like what
it looked like when I was a kid
Can't you see what a giant step for humanity did?
And all of them calluses for palaces built in the sky, boy
Mean nothing to the machine on
the day the working man dies, boy

The robot killed the working man
Took the nail and hammer right out of his hands
Sealed up the coffin, sold off the land
Replaced the good book with machines in their hands
Sooner or later, more soon than not
Them homegrown tomatoes all ripe and then rot
With no rhyme or reason, no protest to stand
The day the robot killed the working man

And brick by brick, them Mullen boys built this town
And brick by brick, them bastards keep tearing me down
There's no one to be angry at every time a working man falls
Just more ads for gambling and more ads for more of it all

The robot killed the working man
Took the nail and hammer right out of his hands
Sealed up the coffin, sold off the land
Replaced the good book with machines in their hands
Sooner or later, more soon than not
Them homegrown tomatoes all ripe and then rot
With no rhyme or reason, no helping hand
The day the robot killed the working man