Woody Guthrie – 1913 Massacre (Guitar)

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A                       Bm'            A
Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen

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To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.

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I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall

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Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

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I'll take you through a door, and up a high stairs.

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Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,

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I will let you shake hands with the people you see

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And watch the kids dance round that big Christmas tree.

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You ask about work and you ask about pay;

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They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day,

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Working the copper claims, risking their lives,

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So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

A                               Bm'          A
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,

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And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,

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Before you know it, you're friends with us all

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And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

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Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights

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To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet.

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To hear all this fun you would not realize

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That the copper-boss thug-men are milling outside.

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The copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the door

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One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"

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A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!

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Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."

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A few people rushed, and it was only a few

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"It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."

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A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down

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But the thugs held the door and they could not get out.

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And then others followed, a hundred or more

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But most everybody remained on the floor.

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The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,

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While the children were smothered on the stair by the door.

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Such a terrible sight I never did see

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We carried our children back up to their tree.

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The scabs outside still laughed at their spree

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And the children that died there were seventy-three.

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The piano played a slow funeral tune

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And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,

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The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,

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"See what your greed for money has done."