1913 MASSACRE
Woody Guthrie

**this is my interpretation of the song, since Guthrie would often 
change chord patterns and timing each time he would play the song**

Capo 4th fret

        G              Am7           G
Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
    C                                    G
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
      G 	                  C      G
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
  	  G            C            D             G
Where the mi-ners are having their big Christmas ball

      G                          Am7         G  
I'll take you through a door,and up a high stairs.
 C 	                            G 	     
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
      G 	                   C          G
I'll let you shake hands with the people you see
     G                C               D              G  	 
And watch th-e kids dance round that big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay;  	 
They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day,  	 
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun t-o spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,  	 
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,  	 
Before you know it, you're friends with us all  	 
And you're danc-ing around and around in the hall.
 
Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights  	 
To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet.  	 
To hear all this fun you would not realize  	 
That the cop-per boss thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss thugs stuck their heads in the door  	 
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"  	 
A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!  	 
Keep on wi-th your party, there's no such a thing."

 A few people rushed, and it was only a few  	 
"It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."  	 
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down  	 
But the thugs he-ld the door and they could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more  	 
But most everybody remained on the floor.  	 
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,  	 
While the child-ren were smothered on the stair by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see 
We carried our children back up to their tree 	  
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree  	 
And the child-ren that died there were seventy-three.
  	 
The piano played a slow funeral tune  	 
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,  	 
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,  	 
"See wha-t your greed for money has done."