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Woody Guthrie - 1913 Massacre Ukulele

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1913 Massacre Ukulele

(ver. 1)
Woody Guthrie
Fairly simple and pretty freely played

Just about the entire song is played with one pattern:

 E |---------
 B |-----0---
 G |-------0-
 D |---0-----
 A |--0------
 E |---------

ie, F:

 E |---------
 B |-----2---
 G |-------2-
 D |---2-----
 A |--0------
 E |---------



A:     X0222X (maybe easier if barred)
Am'(?):X0443X
C:     X0023X
F:     X2003X


played with capo II
(sounding key, D)


F                       Am'            F
Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen
   C                        F             F
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
                                 Am'      F
I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall
         C            F                        F
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

F                                Am'         F
I'll take you through a door, and up a high stairs.
   C                   F          F
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
                                   Am'        F
I will let you shake hands with the people you see
    C               F                             F
And watch the kids dance round that big Christmas tree.

                           Am'        F
You ask about work and you ask about pay;
   C                                       F          F
They'll tell you that they make less than a dollar a day,
                             Am'          F
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
        C            F                            F
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

F                               Am'          F
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
    C                          F          F
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
                           Am'             F
Before you know it, you're friends with us all
           C       F                       F
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

F                                    Am'            F
Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights
   C                      F          F
To play the piano, so you gotta keep quiet.
                               Am'     F
To hear all this fun you would not realize
         C              F                     F
That the copper-boss thug-men are milling outside.

F                                 Am'          F
The copper-boss thugs stuck their heads in the door
   C                                 F          F
One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire!"
                               Am'         F
A lady, she hollered, "There's no such a thing!
        C         F                          F
Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."

F                               Am'     F
A few people rushed, and it was only a few
   C                               F        F
"It's only the thugs and the scabs fooling you."
                                Am'         F
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down
        C             F                           F
But the thugs held the door and they could not get out.

F                          Am'          F
And then others followed, a hundred or more
   C               F                 F
But most everybody remained on the floor.
                                   Am'        F
The gun-thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
          C            F                             F
While the children were smothered on the stair by the door.

F                       Am'       F
Such a terrible sight I never did see
   C                         F          F
We carried our children back up to their tree.
                         Am'              F
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree
        C             F                       F
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

F                  Am'          F
The piano played a slow funeral tune
   C                         F              F
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
                                Am'        F
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
     C         F                   F
"See what your greed for money has done."







Go easy on me; first tab.
            
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