[00:01.00]Artist：bob dylan
[00:01.82]Songs Title：north country blues
[00:03.25]
[00:05.07]Come gather round friends
[00:07.26]And Ill tell you a tale
[00:10.56]
[00:11.31]Of when the red iron pits ran plenty.
[00:13.49]
[00:16.60]But the cardboard filled windows
[00:19.29]And old men on the benches
[00:21.28]
[00:22.54]Tell you now that the whole town is empty.
[00:26.10]
[00:30.85]In the north end of town,
[00:32.73]My own children are grown
[00:35.23]
[00:37.16]But I was raised on the other.
[00:42.51]
[00:43.51]In the wee hours of youth,
[00:46.26]My mother took sick
[00:48.93]
[00:50.85]And I was brought up by my brother.
[00:57.01]The iron ore poured
[00:58.88]As the years passed the door,
[01:03.83]The drag lines an the shovels they was a-humming.
[01:07.21]
[01:08.33]til one day my brother
[01:11.90]Failed to come home
[01:15.29]The same as my father before him.
[01:19.41]
[01:22.60]Well a long winters wait,
[01:25.26]From the window I watched.
[01:27.94]
[01:29.95]My friends they couldnt have been kinder.
[01:34.99]And my schooling was cut
[01:36.56]As I quit in the spring
[01:40.06]
[01:41.62]To marry john thomas, a miner.
[01:44.37]
[01:48.79]Oh the years passed again
[01:50.48]And the givin was good,
[01:52.23]
[01:55.31]With the lunch bucket filled every season.
[02:01.22]What with three babies born,
[02:03.40]The work was cut down
[02:06.48]
[02:07.72]To a half a days shift with no reason.
[02:10.44]
[02:15.09]Then the shaft was soon shut
[02:17.27]And more work was cut,
[02:21.67]And the fire in the air, it felt frozen.
[02:27.26]
[02:27.76]til a man come to speak
[02:30.13]And he said in one week
[02:31.74]
[02:34.63]That number eleven was closin.
[02:36.56]
[02:42.74]They complained in the east,
[02:44.68]
[02:45.31]They are paying too high.
[02:46.43]
[02:49.63]They say that your ore aint worth digging.
[02:51.88]
[02:55.88]That its much cheaper down
[02:58.24]In the south american towns
[03:00.52]
[03:02.84]Where the miners work almost for nothing.
[03:04.71]
[03:11.47]So the mining gates locked
[03:13.52]And the red iron rotted
[03:14.71]
[03:17.78]And the room smelled heavy from drinking.
[03:21.21]
[03:24.09]Where the sad, silent song
[03:25.71]
[03:26.28]Made the hour twice as long
[03:27.71]
[03:31.09]As I waited for the sun to go sinking.
[03:33.02]
[03:37.53]I lived by the window
[03:39.34]As he talked to himself,
[03:40.34]
[03:43.97]This silence of tongues it was building.
[03:45.90]
[03:49.96]Then one mornings wake,
[03:52.27]The bed it was bare,
[03:53.27]
[03:57.49]And is left alone with three children.
[03:59.06]
[04:03.75]The summer is gone,
[04:05.19]The grounds turning cold,
[04:06.25]
[04:09.88]The stores one by one theyre a-foldin.
[04:11.88]
[04:16.13]My children will go
[04:17.63]
[04:18.49]As soon as they grow.
[04:19.63]
[04:23.63]Well, there aint nothing here now to hold them.