I wrote a song on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the tragedy, after reading Leon Stein's history and a book of poems called "Fragments From the Fire" by Chris Llewellyn. It's available on my CD, "We Aint Gonna Give It Back - Songs for the Labor Movement", order info found at my website, johnpauloconnor.com

THE TRIANGLE FIRE
(John O'Connor)

Come gather around and I'll sing you a song
Of a sight that I saw long ago
The weather was fair down in Washington Square
It was spring, I was on my way home.

It was 1911 on March 25
I remember as if yesterday
At the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
Where the girls were all waiting to pick up their pay

Chorus:
Fire was the cry from the windows up high
I saw but I could not believe
Two girls on the ledged as they jumped from the edge
Into the arms of eternity

On the eighth and the ninth and the tenth floor
This factory of workers in the garment trade
Stuffed them into the rooms where so many were doomed
At the end of the sabbath day.

The doors were all locked and the fire escapes weak
The whole building was trap and a peril
Just to make a few bucks from the rich runamoks
Who made money from the lives of young girls.

Repeat Chorus

What choice for a young girl of sixteen or so
But the sweatshop for the shirtwaists they sell
And what choice for a soul in a ten-story hole
But the pavement of the fires of hell.

Now the questions still loom in the workshops and rooms
And the question I will pose it to you
When you stand to defend all these captalists and their friends
What price for the profits of few?

Final Chorus:

And murder I'll cry till the day that I die
For I saw but could not believe
Two girls on the ledge as they jumped from the ledge
Into the arms of eternity.