Fairly simple and pretty freely played
Just about the entire song is played with one pattern:
E |---------
B |-----0---
G |-------0-
D |---0-----
A |--0------
E |---------
ie, :
E |---------
B |-----2---
G |-------2-
D |---2-----
A |--0------
E |---------
A: X0222X (maybe easier if barred)
'(?):X0443X
: X0023X
: X2003X
played with capo II
(sounding key, )
’
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 they 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."
Go easy on me; first tab.