Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
Here in north east Ohio
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Danny Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' yellow creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannon balls
That helped the union win the war
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite, coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy come on the 0hio works
When he come home from world war two
Now the yards just scrap and rubble
He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
Yeah these mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
In Youngstown
In Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heavens work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Danny Heaton
Found the ore that was linin' yellow creek
They built a blast furnace
Here along the shore
And they made the cannon balls
That helped the union win the war
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy worked the furnaces
Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer
A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite, coke and limestone
Fed my children and made my pay
Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
Well my daddy come on the 0hio works
When he come home from world war two
Now the yards just scrap and rubble
He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
Yeah these mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name
In Youngstown
In Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heavens work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
Lyrics submitted by pyledrvr
Track duration: 03:53
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
The song is about the collapse of the blue collar America, the collapse of the American steel industry, the collapse of the working class and their dreams, hopes and aspirations. Working in a steel mill is comparable to Hell, but it still is better than being unemployed and on the mercy of charity.
The protagonist is a second generation steelworker - perhaps the same as in song "Born in the USA"? - who has returned home from Viet Nam war and works as scarfer. His task is to burn off any irregularities of finished hot steel. His father, a WWII veteran, works at blast furnaces. Pyrometallurgy requires notoriously high temperatures, and the work is immensely dangerous. Taconite, coke and limestone are the feedstock of blast furnace making pig iron, and the stacks reaching the sky refer to the stacks of open hearth furnaces for refining the pig iron into steel. "Sweet Jenny" is not a girlfriend or daughter, but Jeannette Furnace, the blast furnace of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Brier Hill Works. She was taken off blast 1977 and demolished 1998.
"The big boys did what Hitler couldn't do" refers to an ex-steelworker's words when he saw the Republic steel six blast furnaces being demolished. Mismanagement, bad business practises and greed drove many steel giants into bankruptcy - and gone was also the jobs, prosperity and American way of life. The big boys managed to do what Hitler tried and failed - destroy the soul of the American working class and middle class and destroy their jobs, sense of security, hopes and the American dream. The protagonist then asks why at all did they fight in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam, and why their sons died if no better future was available.
I like the electric version of this song more. It contains the true feeling and sense of steelmaking.
Bruce's 'Youngstown' should be played at every polling place, during every U.S. election, until the first eight years of century will seem only like a bad dream.
Bruce Springsteen really knows how to resonate with the blue collar types that went through the unimaginable pain of those times... not just in this song, but in many of his songs. I never understand how the pro-big business, anti-worker types can relate to this type of music, yet they seem to find some meaning in it as well.
Rich enough to forget my name''
The steelworkers whose sweat and effort made the companys fortune, and its owners famous, forgot about the hard work of the people who made them big and successful when they shipped industrial output overseas.
On his live performance at the Letterman show, Springsteen himself claims this song is about "loosing everything you've got", and I guess this refers to how the people of Youngstown were affected when the factories closed down.
Classic Springsteen story of the demise of blue collar America. The protagonist worked jobs that most would equate to toiling in hell in Youngstown's steel mills, but that hell was heaven compared to the real hell of dealing with life once those jobs have disappeared.