North Country Blues Lyrics - Joan Baez

Come gather 'round friends 

And I'll tell you a tale 

Of when the red iron 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 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. 

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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 

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. 

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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.