Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems  

Tungsten

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1968 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1996.

Chorus:
Tungsten, wolfram, makes the steel so hard.
It goes thru the side of an army tank as tho it were a paper card.
If you want to rule the world, never mind wrong or right,
All you got to have is tungsten wolframite.

There's only one thing in all this world hard as the tungsten steel,
That's the heart of a financier working on a tungsten deal.
Only one thing in all this world hard as the tungsten kind,
It's a diplomat with tungsten on his mind.

(Chorus)

The air is full of heavy words all about democracy,
And the boys they fight in many lands to keep the free world free,
And the words have a beautiful ringing sound that keeps us all up tight,
But the fact of the matter is tungsten wolframite.

(Chorus)

Tungsten, wolfram, what a happy sound,
Tungsten in stockpiles and underneath the ground,
Tungsten in China, sheelite in Malay,
But there are no tungsten mines in the USA.

(Chorus)

Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook

Other place(s) where the music to this song appears:
---- Broadside No. 95 (November-December 1968)
---- Broadside, Vol. III (New York: Broadside Magazine, 1970), p. 55

Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed:
---- Malvina Reynolds (2007)
---- Cassandra Records CS-51 (7-inch 45 rpm disc, 1969; flip side "The Albatross")

Recordings by other artists on which this song is performed:
---- Shays' Rebellion: Daniel Shays Highway (Flying Fish FF 427, 1987)