Take a trip with me to 1913 To Cal Michigan and the Copper Country I'll take you 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'll let you shake hands with the people you see Watch the kids dancing round the big Christmas tree
You talk about work and you talk about pay They tell you they make less than a dollar a day Working their copper claims risking their lives So it's fun to spend Christmas with their children and wives
A little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights To play the piano so you've got to be quiet To watch all the fuss you don't realize That the copper boss's thugs are waiting outside
And one of them thugs puts his head round the door And he yells and he screams and he roars there's a fire A woman she hollered there's no such a thing Keep up with your party there's no such a thing
But a few people move, only a few It's only them thugs and them scabs fooling you A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down But the scabs held the door and he couldn't get out
Then more people followed a hundred or more Almost everyone left the floor But the scabs kept on with their murderous joke And the children were smothering on the stairs by the door
Such a terrible sight I never did see They carried them back to the big Christmas tree The scabs still laughed at their murderous spree And the children that died numbered seventy-three
The piano plays a slow funeral tune And the town is lit up by a cold Christmas moon The women they cry and the men they do mourn See what your greed for money has done