1913 Massacre lyrics

Artist  : Ramblin` Jack Elliot 
Song : 1913 Massacre
 


Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
To
Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I'll
take you to a place called Italian Hall
Where
the miners are having their big Christmas
ball.

I'll take you through a door, and up
a high stairs.
Singing and dancing is heard
everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with
the people you see
And watch the kids dance
round that big Christmas tree.

You ask
about work and you ask about pay;
They'll tell
you that they make less than a dollar a
day,
Working the copper claims, risking their
lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with
children and wives.

There's talking and
laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit
of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you
know it, you're friends with us all
And you're
dancing around and around in the
hall.

Well, a little girl sits down by the
Christmas tree lights
To play the piano, so
you gotta keep quiet.
To hear all this fun you
would not realize
That the copper-boss
thug-men are milling outside.

The
copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the
door
One of them yelled and he screamed,
"There's a fire!"
A lady, she hollered,
"There's no such a thing!
Keep on with your
party, there's no such a thing."

A few
people rushed, and it was only a few
"It's
only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."
A
man grabbed his daughter and carried her
down
But the thugs held the door and he could
not get out.

And then others followed, a
hundred or more
But most everybody remained on
the floor.
The gun-thugs they laughed at their
murderous joke,
While the children were
smothered on the stair by the door.

Such a
terrible sight I never did see
We carried our
children back up to their tree.
The scabs
outside still laughed at their spree
And the
children that died there were
seventy-three.

The piano played a slow
funeral tune
And the town was lit up by a cold
Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the
miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for
money has done."