Millard Lampell and Lee Hays were in the process of creating new verses for the song "Talking Dust Bowl Blues" by Woody Guthrie, in which he taught the Almanac Singers the song "Old Talking Blues".
[2] Many of the verses they wrote were nonsensical, but after an hour, Lampell and Hays saw that they had created the beginnings of a new song.
[7] It was designed as a "magnetic" song, used to encourage people to join labor unions.
The lyrics then move to common issues that a person who starts a union will face, such as starvation wages, picket lines, the protest demonstrations where the police and the national guard break up the masses and the bosses calling the union workers nasty labels and names.
The song ends with the promise, that in those industrial cities, if nothing breaks one up, "You will win" (But take it easy, but take it) if you just stick together with the union.