Chorus
Em D (Am G)

There’s smoke up in the north country, there’s fire in the pine
C G D (F C G)

There’s a thunderstorm that’s rollin in past the horizon line
Em D C (Am G F)

And there’s white-tail bones and jack pine cones in the shadow of the trees
Em D Em (Am G Am )

But those seeds never take root until the fire sets ‘em free

Em C (Am F)

My daddy was a miner, on the red Mesabi Ore,
G D (C G)

Paid his dues to the the 49ers, ‘til he couldn’t work no more
Em C (Am F)

And on the day the sickness took the life out of his breath
G D (C G)

I caught a freight train headed south outside of Eveleth

 

Percussion or bass comes in- we are now traveling, on train and over highways

 

When you skip town if it weighs you down, you never keep a load

With the Lost Boys and the cross-void tribe that rides the iron road

Who loved and raged from the Cascades, to the Blue Ridge mountain’s stone

And I’ve seen this land in colors that a flag has never shown

 

Chorus

 

Too many turns until I learned the road I’ll choose to walk

the one that brought me home’s the one that led through Standing Rock

And the fires that forged our bonds couldn’t die under the boots

Now we’re scattered like the seeds that grow the prairie grass’s roots

 

I left these woods alone, they called me back, I brought the crew

Taking comfort in old faces, taking courage in the new

In these woods we stand, and these good hands, will make the end of the line

And what it takes, we’ll kill the snake, underneath the northern pine

 

[instrumental bridge, to avoid line/pine couplets being too close]

 

Chorus