Jack Pine

Chorus
Em D (Am G if in key of Am)
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

When you skip town if it weighs you down, you never keep a load
With the Lost Boys and the vagabonds 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]

Chorus


"Jack Pine" was written in the winter leading up to the construction of Enbridge Line 3, as a song in solidarity and support with the water protectors while rooting that perspective in my own life as a rural Minnesotan- though I am from the St Cloud granite quarrying region and not an Iron Ranger, like the narrator of the song. It also reflected a common life story of many of my high school friends and later comrades in struggle- hopping freight trains while young and then becoming involved in the anarchist, water protector, or other liberation movements.