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, A :
E | ---------
B | -----2---
G | -------2-
D | ---2-----
A | --0------
E | ---------
A: X0222X (maybe easier if barred)
Bm'(?):X0443X
D : X0023X
G : X2003X
played with capo II
(sounding key, E )
A Bm? A
Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
D G A
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
Bm? A
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
D G A
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.
A Bm? A
I'll take you through a door, and up a high stairs.
D G A
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
Bm? A
I will let you shake hands with the people you see
D G A
And watch the kids dance round that big Christmas tree.
Bm? A
You ask about work and you ask about pay;
D G A
They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day,
Bm? A
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
D G A
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.
A Bm? A
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
D G A
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Bm? A
Before you know it, you're friends with us all
D G A
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.
A Bm? A
Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights
D G A
To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet.
Bm? A
To hear all this fun you would not realize
D G A
That the copper-boss thug-men are milling outside.
A Bm? A
The copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the door
D G A
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"
Bm? A
A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!
D G A
Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."
A Bm? A
A few people rushed, and it was only a few
D G A
"It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."
Bm? A
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down
D G A
But the thugs held the door and they could not get out.
A Bm? A
And then others followed, a hundred or more
D G A
But most everybody remained on the floor.
Bm? A
The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
D G A
While the children were smothered on the stair by the door.
A Bm? A
Such a terrible sight I never did see
D G A
We carried our children back up to their tree.
Bm? A
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree
D G A
And the children that died there were seventy-three.
A Bm? A
The piano played a slow funeral tune
D G A
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
Bm? A
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
D G A
"See what your greed for money has done."
-Tabbed by Ryon Castro
