Standard (EADGBE)

 ie, :

A: X0222X (maybe easier if barred)

'(?):X0443X

’

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."