Come gather 'round, friends, and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron ore pits run aplenty.
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're 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 and the shovels, they was humming
Till one day my brother failed to come home,
The same as my father before him.
Well, the 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 giving 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
Till a man come to speak and he said in one week
That number eleven was closing.
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
When 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.
Till 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 folding.
My children will go as soon as they grow.
Well, there ain't nothing here now to hold them.