A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
<< Back to Woody Guthrie Song List
Version 1 Version 2I'm pretty sure this is right. It's fingerpicked, but here are the chords: G It was early springtime when the strike was on C G They drove us miners out of doors C G Out from the houses that the company owned D7 G We moved into tents up at old Ludlow I was worried bad about my children Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge Every once in a while a bullet would fly Kick up gravel under our feet We were so afraid you’d kill our children Dug us a cave that was seven foot deep Carried our young ones and a pregnant women Down inside the cave to sleep That very night you soldiers waited ‘Till all us miners was a sleep You snuck around our little tent town Soaked our tents with your kerosene You struck a match and the blaze it started You pulled the triggers of your Gatling guns I made a run for the children but the firewall stopped me Thirteen children died from your gun I carried my blanket to a wire-fence corner Watched the fire ‘till the blaze died down I helped some people drag their belongings While your bullets killed us all around I never will forget the look on the faces Of the men and women on that awful day When we stood around to preach their funeral And lay the corpses of the dead away We told the Colorado governor to phone the president Tell him call off his national guard But the national guard belonged to the governor So he didn’t try so very hard Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes Up to Wallensburg in a little cart They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back And they put a gun in every hand The state soldiers jumped us in the wire-fence corners Did not know that we had these guns And the redneck miners mowed down them troopers You should of seen them poor boys run We took some cement and walled the cave up Where you killed these thirteen children inside I said, “God bless the mine workers’ union” And I hung my head and cried