Lyrics to
Millworker

This version of Millworker was released by Bette Midler in 1979.

Our About Bette Midler page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Millworker from 1979 as well as all of the other lyrics from Bette Midler that we have in our lyrics database.

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Now my grandfather was a sailor.
He blew in off the water.
My father was a farmer
and I his only daughter.

Took up with a no good
millworking man from Massachusetts
who died from too much whiskey
and leaves me these three faces to feed.

Millwork ain’t easy, millwork ain’t hard.
Millwork, it ain’t nothin’
but an awful, boring job.
I’m waiting for a daydream
to take me through the mornin’;
Put me in my coffee break
where I can have a sandwhich and remember.

And it’s me and my machine
for the rest of the mornin’,
for the rest of the afternoon,
for the rest of my life.

Now my mind begins to wander
to the days back on the farm.
I can see my father smilin’
and me swingin’ on his arm.

I can hear my granddad’s stories
of the storms out on Lake Erie,
where vessels and cargos
and fortunes and sailor’s lives were lost.

Yeah, but it’s my life that’s been wasted.
And I have been the fool
to let this manufacture
use my body for a tool.
As I ride home in the evenin’
I’m staring at my hands,
swearin’ by my sorrow
that a young girl ought to stand a better chance.

Oh, but may I work the mills
just as long as I’m able,
and never meet the man
who’s name is on the label.

Whoa, it’s me and my machine
for the rest of the mornin’,
for the rest of the afternoon,
for the rest of my life . . . wasted.

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Want more lyrics and songs by Bette Midler?

Bette Midler has released many songs over the years besides Millworker. Bette Midler released songs from 1972 to 2006 spanning across albums like The Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, Songs For The New Depression, Broken Blossom, Live At Last, Thighs And Whispers, The Rose, Divine Madness, No Frills, Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!, Beaches, Some People's Lives, For The Boys, Gypsy, Bette Of Roses, Bathhouse Betty, Bette, Bette Midler Sings The Rosemary Clooney Songbook, Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook, and Cool Yule. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Bette Midler.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Millworker by Bette Midler

When you decide to study the lyrics to Millworker, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1979 song by Bette Midler. Some of the lyrics to Millworker have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Bette Midler and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Millworker if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Millworker" means the words set to the music of Millworker, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Bette Midler. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Millworker and the lyrics to Millworker are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Bette Midler who came here looking just for the lyrics to Millworker, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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