North Country Blues

Dm
Come gather 'round friends
         G          C
And I'll tell you a tale
Dm                                A7
Of when the red iron pits ran plenty
        Dm
But the cardboard filled windows
    G              C
And old men on the benches
Dm                    G          
Tell you now that the whole town 
      Dm
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
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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