Buchanan County Schools Song (1979)

To listen to the song
click below

The song tells the story, and I wrote it after being asked to sing at a demonstration / fund raiser in Southwestern Virginia to raise money for a court fight.

In the mountains of Appalachia
I'm hearing parents say
Let's work together now to save our schools from decay

All children deserve education
No matter where they live
Time to grow and laugh and play
As much as we can give

It’s our children we are fighting for
Please listen and hear
To let them learn and grow
To make their futures clear

An equal chance to live their lives
Learn right from wrong
To be happy, healthy people
To make our country strong

In Southwestern Virginia
Down Buchanan County way
The Garden School and Whitewood School
Stand like a slum

While school board members sleep
The thunder's just begun
Of parents who will fight to win
Until their job is done

There's rats in the kitchen
Copperheads in the hall
Worms on the sandwiches
Human waste on bathroom walls

For graduating seniors
With diplomas they can't read
There's a future full of poverty
I'm sure we're all agreed

It’s our children we are fighting for
Please listen and hear
To let them learn and grow
To make their futures clear

An equal chance to live their lives
Learn right from wrong
To be happy, healthy people
To make our country strong

The children in Buchanan
Need money for their schools
While large corporations
Are playing them for fools

Taking tax dollars
Across the county line
While knowing that the money is for
The children, yours and mine

In cities, schools are just as bad
Factories of dismay
North and south, and east and west
Across the U.S.A.

We need money for schools
Not foreign wars
If we hope to see our children
As free as they’ve been before

It’s our children we are fighting for
Please listen and hear
To let them learn and grow
To make their futures clear

An equal chance to live their lives
Learn right from wrong
To be happy, healthy people
To make our country strong
©Eric Pappas 1979