Take a trip with me in 1913

To Calumet Michigan

In the copper country

I'll take you to a place

Called Italian Hall

And the miners are having

Their big Christmas Ball

I'll take in a door

And up a high stairs

Singing and dancing is

Heard everywhere

I'll let you shake hands

With the people you see

And watch the kids dance

Round that big Christmas tree

You ask about work and you ask about pay

They'll tell you they

Make less a dollar a day

Working the copper claims

Risking their lives

So it's fun to 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 dancing around

And around in the hall

Hey 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 copper 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 with your party

There's no such a thing"

A few people rushed and

It's only a few

"It's just the thugs and

The scabs fooling you"

A man grabbed his daughter

And he carried her down

But the thugs held the door

And he 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

And the children were smothered

On the stairs 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 children 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 what your greed for money has done"