Molly Maguire

Soundcloud. A ballad telling the story of the Molly Maguires, whose execution remains one of the largest mass executions in US history, and who were rooted out in a counterinsurgency campaign carried out almost entirely by the coal and iron industry's own private security forces. 

D A D
It’s high up on the scaffold I stand, hemp on my neck and hemp on my hands
D A Bm
Wait for the hangman to get the command, and swing us off of the wood
But sure I’ve no fear to be underground, whether to heaven or hell I am bound
For I’ve spent all my life in wage slavery bound, digging the devil’s own blood
D A G D, D G A
Through all of the years of our bodies abused, our voices cut down and petition refused
D A G D, D A Bm
Now condemned by the virtue that we were accused- that to murder, we did conspire
But murder is the operator’s law, there’s blood on his money and blood in his craw
And all that I did was for liberty’s cause, a proud son of Molly Maguire,

Molly was raised in the old country, to fright off the landlord and Orange yeomanry
When the Hunger forced us to come over sea, she crossed with us over the water
From the sun of the New World down into the hole, they sent Paddy down to cut out the coal
The flesh off your shank is the company’s toll, to be feeding your sons and your daughters
From the cradle to grave you’re picking the shale, your back bent in two and your face ever pale
But the smoke from the accident at Avondale, raised Siney’s voice like a fire
For the company’s stock will we go to Old Nick? They value our lives no more than a pick-
So we joined in the union and under the picket, awakened our Molly Maguire

The market fell into a crash and a grind, the companies got their scabs from the breadlines
And in alliance against us combined, the season was ripe for the killing
The gun thugs, the Modocs, the coal police bands gunned down Ed Coyle and tortured the land
with Mrs McAllister’s blood on their hands, their coffins were crying for filling
Through the strike we were living on water and bread; Molly cries out revenge for our dead
We gave them our lives, now we’ll give them our lead, or set their fine manors a-fire,
We’ve heard our children with hunger pains moan,these anthracite valleys now carry their bones
Denied the law’s justice, we carved out our own- the justice of Molly Maguire

The Pinkerton stool to the screws did report, the Iron Police locked us up in the fort,
And the company man sat as judge on the court, to hand down the operator’s laws
And Kelly, that Judas, to slip from the noose, to point to the union’s leaders was induced
But the crimes they’re accused of is just an excuse, to strangle the life from their cause
Our confession could never exonerate them, what use is the word of a killer condemned,
cut off in your bloom with a rope on your stem, for all the crowd to admire
The miners and wives and families stand, in silent salute for the death of each man
Picked by the snitch and the coal boss’s hand, to die as a Molly Maguire