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Bob Dylan - North Country Blues

North Country Blues
Bob Dylan
04:30
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Song lyrics

Come gather 'round, friends,
And I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran empty,
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..

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 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,
'Til a man come to speak,
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closing.

They complained in the East
They are playing 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 smelted 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-folding,
My children will go
As soon they grow,
Well, there ain't nothing here now to hold them.

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