Where the Mississippi Water rolls along to meet the Sauk

And the river bank slopes down over the gray and rosy rock

Granite City said the sign; granite was the prison wall

But I scarcely met a quarryman in the city there at all

 

Chorus: 

Now the red and broken stone lies along the railroad tracks

The quarry days are gone, boys, they’re never coming back

Still the pulley gives a groan and the engine gives a roar

But scarce a soul quarries stone in granite city anymore 

 

Oh the ringing and the blasting used to hammer through the day

Where the men went down into the pits to haul the stone away

And there were barges on the river and the train tracks that led

To the builders in the city hauling off the St Cloud red

 

Chorus

 

But that was long ago, and time has rolled along

The best stone’s all been taken, the industry’s moved on

And what we’ve got left here, it isn’t like back then

They’ve got new machines to do the work of fifty men

Chorus

Now the drag lines and conveyers rise up high above the scree
The engineers here working for the Lockheed company
And the big box and the strip mall sprout like weeds out of the ground
The pits are all just swimming holes on the outskirts of town