North Country Blues

Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale

Of when the red iron ore 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 have 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 in the shovels, they was humming

'Til one day my brother failed to come home

The same as my father before him

Well, long winter's wait, from the window I watched

My friends, they couldn't have been kinder

And my school, it 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 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 11 was closing

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 nothin'

So, the mining gates locked and the red iron rotted

And the room smelled heavy from drinking

When 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

'Til 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 folding

My children will go as soon as they grow

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