North Country Blues

Come gather 'round friends

And I'll tell you a tale

Of when the red iron pits ran plenty

But the cardboard filled windows

And old men on the benches

Tell you now that the whole town is empty

In the north end of town

My own children are grown

But I was raised on the other

In the wee hours of youth

My mother took sick

And I was brought up by my brother

The iron ore poured

As the years passed the door

The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming

'Til one day my brother

Failed to come home

The same as my father before him

Well a long winter's wait

From the window I watched

My friends they couldn't have been kinder

And my schooling was cut

As I quit in the spring

To marry John Thomas, a miner

Oh the years passed again

And the givin' was good

With the lunch bucket filled every season.

What with three babies born

The work was cut down

To a half a day's shift with no reason

Then the shaft was soon shut

And more work was cut

And the fire in the air, it felt frozen

'Til a man come to speak

And he said in one week

That number eleven was closin'

They complained in the east

They are paying too high.

They say that your ore ain't worth digging

That it's much cheaper down

In the south american towns

Where the miners work almost for nothing

So the mining gates locked

And the red iron rotted

And the room smelled heavy from drinking.

Where the sad, silent song

Made the hour twice as long

As I waited for the sun to go sinking

I lived by the window

As he talked to himself

This silence of tongues it was building

Then one morning's wake

The bed it was bare

And I's left alone with three children

The summer is gone

The ground's turning cold

The stores one by one they're a-foldin'

My children will go

As soon as they grow

Well, there ain't nothing here now to hold them