Massacre Of 1913 Songtext

von David Rovics

(Woody Guthrie)

Let me take you back to 1913
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
Befoe you know it you're friends with us all
And you're dancing and dancing around in the hall

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

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 stick their heads in the door
One of them screams and he yells, "there's a fire"
A lady she hollers, "there's no such a thing
"Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing"

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

Then others rushed, a hundred or more
But most everybody remained on the floor
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke
And the children were smothered on the stairs by the smoke

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 was seventy-three

The piano played a slow funeral tune
And the night 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