1913 Massacre

Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
 To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country
 I'll take you to place called Italian Hall
 And the miners are having their big Christmas ball
 I'll take you in 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 the big Christmas tree
 There's talkin' and laughin' 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
 You ask about work and you ask about pay
 They'll tell you, 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
 Hey, 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 had not realize
 That the copper-boss thug-men they 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's only a few
 It's just 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
 Most everybody remained on the floor
 The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke
 And 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
 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