Rachel Sumner // "Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)" // NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2020

2021 Grand Prize Winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition's Folk Category. Help Rachel's song "Radium Girls" win the John Lennon Songwriting Contest's SONG OF THE YEAR by voting DAILY between APRIL 1st and APRIL 30th at: jlsc.com/vote
___
Written and performed by Rachel Sumner
Fiddle and harmony by Devon Gardner
Filmed during self-quarantine, March 2020.
www.rachelsumnermusic.com
___
In the days when Rosie beckoned girls to join assembly lines
A mixture, aptly named "Undark" made wristwatch faces' shine
And women with star-spangled hearts sat faithfully in rows
Bent to help the boys entrenched stave off those dark shadows
Day-by-day they all were tasked to paint two hundred dials
With brushes made of camel hair and radium dust in vials
The numbers on the clocks were all so dainty and so slight
That the girls were taught to use their lips to point the bristles tightly
The taste was a little foul, but no one really seemed to mind
The pay was more than three times what a girl back then could find
Radium was championed a new found fount of youth
And the few who knew the dangers kept the public from the truth
Curie eleison
The dial painters found their job quite grand and marvelous
Delighted when they'd finish covered in the magic dust
They'd turn each other's drabbest dresses into gowns that sparkled
No earthly sight quite like those glowing angels in the darkness
But, soon these young girls ached like they had lived for eighty-years
In hips and jaws and spines that caused bewilderment and fear
So many different doctors were sought out for remedies
That it took too long for any one to gather all the pieces
Aching turned to limping, and sore mouths began to bleed
Jaw bones broke apart and smiles gave way to crumbling teeth
Tumors grew and hips were fractured, helpless families sought after
Aid of any sort, from doctors they could not afford
Curie eleison
To have so many sick at once seemed no coincidence
But the company - confronted - had maintained its innocence
Yet they'd secretly received results that told a different story
And they knew, despite their lies, that they were liable for the suffering
Those who had enlisted ladies to leave luminescent marks
Were now working overtime to keep them in the dark
Not a single protocol was changed at all, though there was danger
And ailing workers failing fast were easily exchanged for
Healthy, younger women unsuspecting and naive
Who craved to carve their own piece of The Great American Dream
Nothing pierced those stone hearts fortified by corporate greed
Even when the women's own hearts, one-by-one had ceased to beat
Curie eleison
I wish that I could tell you that somebody'd found a cure
Or that when the court case first came round, the crime was answered for
These women walked among the living having one foot in the grave
Still they used what fight that they had left so others could be saved
To this day no one can say how many lives were lost
Had they been sooner taken seriously it might have cut the cost
You may claim women have been long-since elevated in this world -
But how can that be? Our ashes still speak louder than our words...

[@selfchris9494]

Beautiful song! You both have lovely soft voices

[@alexsummerRain]

I am a HUGE fan of this song and artist!!! GREAT song, it breaks my heart it's so true & beautiful. ThankYou ThankYou ThankYou!

[@TiffanyWilliamsMusic]

Amazing 💙

[@hlfrt]

Hello, I'm not accustomed to comment on KZbin but i wanted to say you, that your song is a great song because it allows for never forgetting the sorrowful history of those girls... By the way I'm French so that's why my English isn't perfect. Keep singing you are talented .

[@jennyhurwitz]

incredible song about such a tragic outrage.

[@SHVLS]