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 you 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      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      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 to spend Christmas with children and wives      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"