The electrician stares at the drought-thin, dammed-up Tallapoosa.

The sun sinks. We watch it drown.

The cracks in his hands are still black with the dust

of the mine down in Colombia, the country not the town.

It was like stepping back in time. His voice shakes.

The women and children. The armed guards. The 12-hour days.

The ropes and the mules and the buckets and the shacks.

That little man working them poor folks like slaves.

He ain't nothing

but a little-bitty man

in some little-bitty boots.

He ain't nothing

but a little-bitty man

in some little-bitty boots.

Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up off me.

Get up, get up, get up, get up off my back.

Among the ruins of Old Cahawba,

the columns of the Yankee's plantation house loom.

Generals parleyed there before the Battle of Selma,

civilly warring in the parlor room.

Did they speak to the Black women who fixed the bountiful supper?

Did they study their curves with lizard eyes?

Could they agree on things like duty and honor and

sitting back behind the front lines while all the poor boys died?

He ain't nothing

but a little-bitty man

in some little-bitty boots.

He ain't nothing

but a little-bitty man

in some little-bitty boots.

Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up off me.

Get up, get up, get up, get up off my back.

The crew’s sunken quarter-tons. The boss's towering crewcab.

It's ironic, isn't it?

These days, it’s like the bigger the truck a body's got,

the less work they do with it.

They call him a planter, but he didn't plant nothing.

They call him a builder, but he doesn't build shit.

Old Jeff Davis never hoed one row.

Old Donald Trump never laid one brick.

He ain't nothing

but a little-bitty man

in some little-bitty boots.

He ain't nothing

but one little-bitty man

in two little-bitty boots.

Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up off me.

Get up, get up, get up, get up off my back.

Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up off us.

Get up, get up, get up, get up off our backs.