Take a trip with me in 1913,
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To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
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I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
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Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.
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I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
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Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
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I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
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And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.
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You ask about work and you ask about pay,
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They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
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Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
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So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.
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There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
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And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
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Before you know it you're friends with us all,
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And you're dancing around and around in the hall.
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Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
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To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
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To hear all this fun you would not realize,
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That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.
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The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
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One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire,"
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A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
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Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."
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A few people rushed and it was only a few,
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"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you,"
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A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
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But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.
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And then others followed, a hundred or more,
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But most everybody remained on the floor,
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The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
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While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.
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Such a terrible sight I never did see,
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We carried our children back up to their tree,
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The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
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And the children that died there were seventy-three.
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The piano played a slow funeral tune,
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And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
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The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
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"See what your greed for money has done."
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1913 Massacre
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Woody Guthrie |