Joan Baez – North Country Blues (Guitar)

Em
Come gather 'round friends

         D
And I'll tell you a tale

            Em       D            Em
Of when the red iron ore pits ran plenty

                         G
But the cardboard filled windows

    D
And old men on the benches

         Em           D             Em
Tell you now that the whole town is empty

Em
In the north end of town

       D
My own children are grown

    Em           D         Em
But I was raised up on the other

                    G
In the wee hours of youth

   D
My mother took sick

    Em            D        Em
And I was brought up by my brother

Em
The iron ore poured

       D
As the years passed the door

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

                G
'Til one day my brother

D
Failed to come home

    Em         D        Em
The same as my father before him

Em
Well a long winter's wait

         D
From the window I watched

   Em           D                  Em
My friends they couldn't have been kinder

                     G
And my schooling was cut

     D
As I quit in the spring

   Em         D         Em
To marry John Thomas, a miner

Em
Oh the years passed again

        D
And the givin' was good

         Em            D            Em
With the lunch buckets filled every season

                       G
What with three babies born

    D
The work was cut down

     Em           D             Em
To a half a day's shift with no reason

Em
Then the shaft was soon shut

       D
And my work it was cut

        Em          D            Em
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen

                   G
'Til a man come to speak

       D
And he said in one week

     Em      D         Em
That number eleven was closin'

Em
They complained in the East

         D
They are paying too high

     Em            D               Em
They say that your ore ain't worth digging

                       G
That it's much cheaper down

             D
In the South American towns

          Em          D          Em
Where the miners work almost for nothing

Em
So the mining gates locked

        D
And the red iron rotted

        Em           D          Em
And the room smelled heavy from drinking

                      G
Where the sad, silent song

         D
Made the hour twice as long

     Em             D         Em
As I waited for the sun to go sinking

Em
I lived by the window

      D
As he talked to himself

     Em         D              Em
This silence of tongues it was building

                   G
Then one morning's wake

    D
The bed it was bare

    Em        D               Em
And I's left alone with three children

Em
The summer is gone

    D
The ground's turning cold

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

                 G
My children will go

   D
As soon as they grow

          Em            D           Em
Oh, there ain't nothing here now to hold them