Finn Forum X Presentation—Oren Tikkanen, April 2014
The history of metal mining in the western Upper Peninsula of
Michigan goes back 2,500 years or more, when ancient inhabitants of
North America discovered and began mining deposits of native
copper on the Keweenaw Peninsula and adjacent areas along Lake
Superior. In 1841, Michigan state geologist Douglass Houghton rediscovered the copper deposits, and began a boom in copper, and
later, iron mining on a modern industrial scale.
This heavily industrialized approach to mining created the need for
large numbers of workers, and attracted many immigrants from
Europe and Canada, including Cornish, Irish, Welsh, Scots,
Germans, Hungarians, Poles, French-Canadians, Italians,
Slovenians, Croatians, Scandinavians, and—perhaps the largest
single linguistic group—Finns to work in and around the mines.
I propose to examine the experience of some of those workers by
presenting three songs that come from the history of UP mining.
Part 1.
The first of these songs has lyrics written in Finnish by Santeri
Mäkelä. “Kaivantomiehen Laulu”, (“The Miner’s Song”) was published
in Uusi Työväen Laulukirja (The New Workers’ Songbook) in
Hancock, Michigan, 1909.
The song first came to my attention when it was reprinted in Simo
Westerholm’s collection of Finnish-American immigrant songs,
“Reisaavaisen Laulu Ameriikan—Siirtolaislauluja” (Kaustinen Folk
Music Institute, 1983).
Westerholm’s notes on the song say that folklorist Antti Hosioja
collected the song from the folksinger, Erkki Rankaviita, in Karijoki,
Finland, 1975. My limited Finnish language skills prevented me from
understanding the complete text of the song, but I knew it was about
working in the mine, and that it had a local connection. I could see
that the song referred to the utter blackness of working underground,
a condition to which I had heard my copper-miner father, Harold
Tikkanen, refer many times.
It was only in 2013 that I heard the rousing performance of the song
by the Sibelius Academy Folk Big Band on YouTube, and
subsequently discovered that my friend and sometimes band-mate,
Dennis Halme had translated the entire text. Then I understood what
a revolutionary song and call to action this composition seems to be.
The Sibelius version can be viewed at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSReWhbWJX0
There is also a version of the song by Erkki Rankaviita available for
viewing on YouTube, with perhaps more insight into its history in the
Finnish-language interview between Rankaviita and Simo
Westerholm, beginning at 2:54 at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyg8GrhfBgg
According to a Finnish Wikipedia article which Google Translate
rendered into (something like) English, Santeri Mäkelä was born in
1870 into a farmer’s family in the township of Vimpeli, Southern
Ostrobothnia. Vimpeli is about 90 miles by road east of Vaasa, and
34 miles by road south of the music town of Kaustinen. Santeri began
writing and apparently teaching quite early, and immigrated to the US
circa 1900. He worked in the iron mines of the Gogebic Range
around Ironwood, MI, and also became a local labor leader,
journalist, and popular speaker with immigrant audiences.
In 1907, Mäkelä returned to Vimpeli to continue his newspaper and
political work, and was elected as a Social Democrat to Parliament,
where he focused on “rural peasant socialism”. The Wikipedia article,
in Google translation, says he favored non-violence, but during the
Finnish Civil War became involved with the Red Guards as an
“agitation department spokesman”. After the defeat of the Red
Guards, he fled to Russia, where he continued political organization,
education, and writing.
Mäkelä wrote and published several works of poetry, political writing,
drama, and perhaps fiction. The cause and date of his death,
probably in 1937 or 1938, are unclear, but it seems to be accepted
that he perished in a Stalinist purge.
The works of Santeri Mäkelä appear to be well-known among leftist
Finnish writers and historians, and a fuller description of his life and
work can surely be found, especially by those who are fluent in
Finnish.
Focusing on the song, one sees that it is ¾ time—“waltz time”. At this
point, I have no information about the source of the melody, nor even
if Mäkelä intended his verses as a song. However, since it falls so
naturally into the form of a rhyming couplet, with each line repeated—
as so many Finnish popular and folk songs of that period do—it
seems likely to me that Mäkelä wrote this as a song.
Wherever the melody came from, it has a sweet, nostalgic, almost
whimsical style to my ear, and seems like an odd choice for
conveying the dark images of the text. However, as Professor Pirjo
Kukkonen has written, “Finnish music combines minor and major
keys – minor with joy and major with sorrow...” (Tango Nostalgia,
Helsinki University Press, 2003, p. 102)
Following is the Finnish text, with Dennis Halme’s translation:
Niin musta, on musta, on ikuinen yö,
Ja kellot lyö kaksitoista :||
Vain torkkuen toverit istuskelee
Hikikarpalot kulmillansa :||
Niin musta, on musta, on manalan sy’än,
Josta mä leipani haen :||
Kapitaali mun orjakseen ostanut on
Käsivarteni ja verenkin :||
Oi armani, armani, kalpea oi,
Mi syömmeni sykkimään sait :||
Nyt valkeella vuoteellas lepäjät kai
Iki-vuori mun peittävi vain :||
Oi, Luoja, oi Luoja, sua kiroa en,
En kiroa kohtaloain :||
Minä kiroan valtoja tyrannien
Ja vapauttain ikävöitsen :||
Minä ikavöin vapautta ihmiskunnan
Proletaarien sorrettujen :||
Minä ikävöin taistohon tuimimpahan
Veriruusuja katsomahan :||
So black, so black is the eternal night,
and the clock strikes twelve.
Only drowsing comrades sit with sweat on their brows.
So black, so black is the heart of hell where I earn my bread.
Capital has bought my servitude,
my arms and even my blood.
Oh my dear, my dear, pale, oh!
How you have made my heart beat! Now on your white bed you surely lie. Only
the eternal mountain covers me.
Oh Creator, oh Creator, I curse you not, nor do I curse my fate.
I curse the powers of tyrants
and I long for my freedom.
I long for the freedom of humanity and of the oppressed proletariat.
I long for the sharper struggle,
to see the blood roses.
The goal I set myself is to rewrite the text in a “singable” English
version that will convey most of the images of Mäkelä’s original,
create the same emotional mood (as far as I understand it), and hold
the attention of a 21st century audience.
I think that the tradition of repeating each line comes from group
singing. A song leader sings a line, and the rest of the group then
repeats it, creating a smooth call-and-response form of group
performance, even if the group did not know the song previously. This
type of singing is well-known for building a sense of community and
group cohesion.
I decided to dispense with the repeats, and to collapse the original six
verses into three, so that the song can be performed in half the time,
and thus not lose a non-singing audience because of the monotony of
hearing each line twice. Of course, if one has a singing audience, the
song can be re-expanded for call-and-response singing.
When I first read Halme’s translation, I was struck by the vehemence
of the language. The images of “servitude” and the workers’ “arms,
and even blood” being owned by “capital”, and the longing for the
“sharper struggles”, and the “blood-roses” startled me. In the first
drafts of my English version—which I performed a few times during
the 1913 Strike Centennial—I found that I had written “we” and “our”
where the original said “I” and “me” and “my”. I had written a version
that seemed to reflect a group consciousness, but came to the
conclusion that in fact the original represents an individual’s
meditations and perhaps coming to a decision. The very title supports
this conclusion to some extent—kaivantomiehen is the singular
possessive form of “pit-man”, not “pit-men”.
The lines directed to the miner’s sweetheart describe her as “pale”
(kalpea), and lying on her white bed. Because he says that she has
made his heart beat, I assumed that he is thinking of her fondly, and
wishing he were with her. However, kalpea apparently does not mean
“pale” as in “fair”, but instead means “wan” and “bloodless”. It occurs
to me now that perhaps she is ill, or even dead. A quick check with a
native Finnish-speaker suggests that the Finnish text actually is
ambiguous and can be interpreted that way. If the miner’s sweetheart
is dead or dying, it certainly might have an influence on his mood of
discontent, and on his desire to leave the mine and join the “sharper
battles.” The writer might be offering the ironic image of the dead
sweetheart on her white bier, while the living miner is “buried” deep in
the mine.
My English version is, and will remain, a work in progress, and I am
staying for the moment with the idea that he is lightening the drudgery
of his work by thinking of his mate covered up in her cozy bed, while
it is only the “eternal mountain” that covers him—which I have
changed to the “trembling rocks overhead”. This image comes from
my father’s stories of dangerous rocks “falling out of the back”
(miners referred to the “ceiling” of a tunnel, drift, or stope as “the
back”).
I am not well-informed enough about the rhetoric used 100 years ago
to understand the emotional responses that would have been elicited
by the use of language like “capitalist” and “proletariat”. Certainly over
the span of my own lifetime in the second half of the 20th century,
those terms became so politicized as to cause “knee-jerk” reactions
in audiences. I am not opposed to performing songs with intense
political messages, but I am more interested here in presenting a
song that gives some insight into the experience of immigration and
mine work. I’ve changed “capitalist” into “bosses”, and “proletariat”
into “humankind”. I do not see this as “sanitizing” the language, but
instead conveying the original message in words that can possibly
avoid culturally-conditioned reactions, and allow audiences to
consider the ideas on their own merits.
My version mentions “darkness” and “light” more than the original,
which I have emphasized because of the frequent references by
veteran miners to the complete absence of light underground, and (I
suppose) to further the metaphor of overcoming the darkness of
ignorance with the illumination of knowledge and new ideas. Other
elements which I have added have been to create what I hope is a
natural sounding English-language narrative flow.
Mäkelä gives the image of “blood-roses”—veriruusuja—as a
metaphor for bloodshed. This is a very intense, colorful, and possibly
over-romanticized metaphor, and it is unclear to me how well Englishspeakers can catch the meaning upon hearing it. I have personal
reservations about referring to probably-fatal gunshot wounds as
“blood-roses blooming”. However, the metaphor is too powerful to not
include, if an audience is to understand anything about Mäkelä’s
song.
“Kaivantonmiehen Laulu”, Tikkanen English-language version, April, 2014
It’s blacker than ink, it’s darker than night,
And there is the 12 o’clock bell.
It’s here that we earn our poor daily bread,
This pit in the deep heart of hell.
My comrades are sweating and straining away
Like rats that are gnawing a stone.
The bosses have bought us and put us down here.
They own us now, hands, blood, and bone.
My darling, my dear one, I’m thinking of you
All covered up in your warm bed.
I’m pushing this tram car, and what covers me
Is the tremble-ing rock overhead.
I don’t curse the good Lord because I am poor,
Nor the fate that holds me like a noose.
No, I blame the bosses who don’t do the work,
But take all the wealth we produce.
I could stay in darkness and do as I’m told,
Remaining where I’m working blind.
But I see a light that is showing the way
To the freedom of all humankind.
If the choice is to struggle in sunshine and air,
Or slavery way down below,
If it must come to battle, then battle I will,
And I sing, “Let the blood-roses grow!”
As mentioned, this is a work in progress, and it invites further
research and interpretation by others—whom I hope will be better
qualified than I.
Part 2.
The Thirty-First Level Blues (Vladimir “Lado” Floriani Jr., and Jim Floriani, 1938?)
I’ve got the Thirty-first Level blues, from my head down to my shoes.
In the morning I mope around, in the evening my sorrows I drown.
Oh, the boss came down today, and said “Get up, don’t stall around.”
Shows I’m paid to try and keep his “rep.”
Work makes my back ache, and someday his head I’ll break,
‘Cause I’ve got the blues, the Thirty-first Level blues.
There’s copper underground, as pure as can be found.
Sometimes, it’s a mile below, a mine can be hot or cold.
Oh—the dangers there are several, death waits for you at any level,
But I’ve got a wife and kids at home to feed.
I light up my gas lamp, to go down into this slave camp,
I’m feeling low as this thirty-first level hole.
The blues I always find, working down in this mine.
Gonna quit this job today, wanna live like the other kind.
When the boss came down today, told him another he’d have to find
To work so hard for the good old C&H.
Work makes my back ache, I’m going fishing in the lake,
And no longer get the Thirty-first Level blues.
Vladimir Floriani Sr. was a Croatian immigrant who settled in the
Keweenaw County mining town of Ahmeek. He taught his four sons
to play tamburitza music from Croatia, and two of the boys , Veko and
Joe, went on to become part of the first Duquesne University
Tamburitzan ensemble around 1937. In 1938, Alan Lomax filmed and
recorded three of the Florianis, father and sons, playing Croatian folk
music, but also recorded them performing an original song written by
Vladimir Jr. (“Lado”): “The Thirty-First Level Blues”. This song is a
description of working deep in a copper mine (the 31st level would be
something like 3,000 feet below the surface). The film clip can be
viewed on-line at http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/08/inquiring-mindsalan-lomax-goes-north/
Reportedly, the Floriani brothers not only played Croatian instruments
and folk music, but also transferred their skills to the guitar and banjo
for American music styles. Folklorist Jim Leary told me that the
Florianis played the “Thirty-First Level Blues” at local dances and on
local radio to much acclaim.
A photograph of a popular 1930’s Keweenaw dance band, “The
Mandan Hayseeds”, shows Veko Floriani playing bass alongside a
violinist, trumpeter, drummer, and guitarist, but the instrument Veko is
playing is not a bass viol, but is clearly a bass tambura, or “brdo”.
This bass is about the same size and shape as a bass viol, but is
designed only for plucking, not bowing, and has a flat, fretted
fingerboard, wound steel strings, and is played with a large plectrum.
Meanwhile, Lado Floriani’s song about the thirty-first level has a
melody and harmonic structure that comes straight out of American
ragtime and jazz, for the most part following a pattern of “I-VI7-II7-V7I” chords through the “circle of fifths”. I find it interesting to see how
the “bi-cultural” Floriani brothers could move easily between their
Croatian musical heritage and the popular musical culture of 1930’s
America.
Despite the rather mellow, good-time nature of the “Thirty-First Level
Blues” melody, the lyrics describe the discontent this mine worker
feels about his job and about the “boss”, and his pattern of “drowning
his sorrows” after work. The reference to the “good old C&H” means,
of course, the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, the largest and
most dominant of the mine operators in the region.
Lado’s son, Jim Floriani, later added the third verse. He told me that
his father hated working in the mine, and eventually did quit to
become a partner and meat-cutter at Chopp’s Market in Ahmeek.
If it had not been for Alan Lomax’s films and recordings surfacing
again, “The Thirty-First Level Blues” might have remained buried with
all the other folk history of Copper Country mining that has been
forgotten.
Part 3.
From Wikipedia:
“1913 Massacre" is a topical ballad written by Woody Guthrie, and recorded and
released in 1941 for Moses Asch's Folkways label. The song originally appeared
on Struggle, an album of labor songs…the song is about the deaths
of striking copper miners and their families in Calumet, Michigan, on Christmas
Eve, 1913, commonly known as the Italian Hall disaster.
Woody started writing this song around 1941. According to Pete Seeger he had
the idea of the song after reading about the Italian Hall disaster in Mother Bloor's
autobiography, which was titled We Are Many, which was published in 1940.
Guthrie's own notes indicate that he got the idea for the song "from the life of
Mother Bloor", who was an eyewitness to the events at Italian Hall on Christmas
Eve, 1913.
A socialist and a labor organizer from the East Coast, Bloor was in Calumet
working on the miners' behalf with the Ladies Auxiliary of the Western Federation
of Miners. She was greatly assisted in this work by Annie Clemenc, also known
as Big Annie of Calumet – the "lady" in Woody's song who hollers 'there's no
such a thing! / Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing.' Bloor tells the
story of the Calumet strike and the Italian Hall disaster in the first half of a
chapter called "Massacre of the Innocents”…Woody's song echoes the language
of Bloor's account in many places.
The historian Arthur W. Thurner has found similar accounts in English and
Finnish-language newspapers from the period; these accounts, he says,
probably originated with Annie Clemenc.
There are conflicting stories about what actually happened that Christmas Eve
and of who yelled fire in Italian Hall. These conflicts will probably never be
resolved: they are themselves evidence of what Thurner calls a "war between
capital and labor" in the Copper Country in 1913. This war manifested itself, even
in 1913–1914, in a struggle over the story of what really transpired that
Christmas Eve in Italian Hall.
The debate over what the event means (or should mean) is ongoing. Woody's
song counts as one of the more powerful —and certainly one of the best known –
interpretations of the tragedy.
Woody's version of the song is available on Struggle and on Hard Travelin'… and
the song has been recorded and performed many times…Among those who
have done the song are Woody's son Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin Jack Elliot, Scottish
folksinger Alex Campbell, and Bob Dylan.
As a Copper Country folk musician, I’ve been called on at times to
perform Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre”, and each time I’ve done
it, I’ve found myself changing the lyrics here and there to fit what I’ve
read in the history books, and adding a bit of spoken narration to
include some of the facts of the tragedy.
Like most of the other “folkies” in my generation, I’ve always admired
and revered Woody, and I’ve been challenged more than once about
my daring to rewrite Woody’s account. However, I grew up in
Calumet Township, and I feel that this is my history. In fact, I attended
“record hops” as a teenager, and discovered later that I was dancing
in the Italian Hall—I had walked up and down that staircase where 73
(74?) people had died.
Even the PBS TV documentary about the Michigan Copper Strike
that was broadcast in 2013 referred to Woody’s song as “deeply
flawed, historically”—but then went on to have Steve Earle sing the
song without clarifying the “flaws”!
As far as I can see, the song seems to present some unsubstantiated
accusations as fact, and yet doesn’t really tell the rest of the story to
whatever extent we understand it now.
This is not a criticism of Woody. Apparently, he based his song on
one source, the memoirs of Mother Bloor. If he had had the sources
we now have—even just Arthur Thurner’s Rebels on the Range, he
might have come to the same conclusion that I have.
It seems clear that the Citizens’ Alliance, capitalizing on the DallyJane murders in early December, 1913, had created, with the
compliance of local authorities, an armed force of 2,100 “deputies”.
These “deputies” (along with the hired “security advisers” from the
Waddell-Mahon company and others) treated strikers roughly, and
established a palpable sense of intimidation by searching people’s
homes, raiding union stores and offices, and making public threats of
deportation. The Citizens’ Alliance quickly and efficiently created a
mood of fear among many of the strikers—and their families—which
instantly heightened into terror when someone yelled “Fire!” at the
Italian Hall Christmas Party.
For the most part, I’m attempting to get more of the historical account
into Woody’s song, and I don’t think the original spirit is changed. I do
take the opportunity to introduce Big Annie Clemenc into the song,
because as well as being one of the most important figures in the
Michigan Copper Strike, she was the “hostess” of the Italian Hall
Christmas party. This hero of the labor movement could not be
stopped by National Guard beatings, arrests, and bayonet wounds,
but suffered such a shock from the deaths of the children that she
was bedridden for some weeks—what we would probably call “posttraumatic stress disorder” today. She did recover enough to take up
her leadership activities again, and even went on a national speaking
tour in 1914 to raise money for the strike. I think Woody would have
put Annie in his song himself if he had known all about her—or
maybe even written a whole series of songs about her.
“1913 Massacre” by Woody Guthrie
as appear in liner notes of Arlo Gurthrie CD “Hobo’s
Lullaby”
“1913 Massacre”
alternate lyrics by Oren Tikkanen
(December 2013)
Take a tip with me in nineteen thirteen
To Calumet, Michigan in the copper country
I’ll take you to a place called Italian Hall
And the miners are having their big Christmas ball
Take a trip with me in 1913
To Calumet at Christmas in the Copper Country
I’ll take you to a place called Italian Hall
Where the union is giving the children a ball.
I’ll take you in a door and up a high stairs
Singing and dancing is heard ev’rywheres
I’ll let you shake hands with the people you see
And watch the kids dance ‘round the big Christmas
tree
I’ll take you through a door and up a high stair
And six hundred people are packed in up there.
The children are hungry and I’ll tell you why,
Their fathers have been on strike since July.
There’s talking and laughing and songs in the air
And the spirit of Christmas is there ev’rywhere
Before you know it you’re friends with us all
And you’re dancing around and around in the hall
There’s Big Annie Clemenc standing up on the stage,
Her lips are smiling, but her heart’s filled with rage,
She knows that although the kids need their treat,
The Citizen’s Alliance is down on the street.
Big Annie wants the children to feel Christmas cheer,
You ask about work and you ask about pay
But the Citizens’ Alliance brings panic and fear.
They’ll tell you they make less than a dollar a day
Two thousand of them are now deputies,
Working their copper claims, risking their lives
Invading our homes, and do just as they please.
So it’s fun to spend Christmas with children and wives
Now it’s time for Santa to pass out the gifts,
A little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights
And the kids start yelling, as they push and they shift.
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet
And just as the noise and commotion gets higher,
To hear all this fun you would not realize
Some man dressed in black at the door bellows,“Fire!”
That the copper boss thug men are milling outside
Big Annie yells, “No! There’s no fire!” and then
The copper boss thugs stuck their head in the door
The man dressed in black calls out “Fire!” again.
One of them yelled and he screamed, “There’s a fire!” The frightened children all scream out in terror,
A lady she hollered, “There’s no such a thing
The ones near the door make a break for the stairs.
Keep on with you party, there’s no such a thing”
They stumble, and tumble, and land in a pile,
A few people rushed and there’s only a few
But more kids are pushing behind all the while.
“It’s just the thugs and the scabs fooling you”
Their poor little bodies are crushed out of breath,
a man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down Before we can help them, they’ve gone to their
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out deaths.
And then others followed, about a hundred or more
But most everybody remained on the floor
The gun thugs, they laughted at their murderous joke
And the children were smothered on the stairs by the
door
Such a terrible sight I never did see
We carried our children back up to their tree
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree
And the children that died there was seventy-three
The piano played a slow funeral tune
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon.
The parents, they cried and the miners,
They moaned, “See what your greed for money has
done”
The deputies finally come in the back,
They might want to help, but it looks like attack.
They gallop their horses outside in the street,
And the panic they cause is nearly complete.
Now it’s getting dark on this Christmas Eve,
And five thousand people have gathered to grieve.
The bodies are carried to the Red Jacket Hall,
Because there’s no morgue big enough for them all.
Big Annie is sobbing as if she might die,
And someone approaches her and asks her why.
“Did you have a child here? Is that why you’re cryin’?”
She says, “Every one of those children was mine!”
We never do find out who uttered that yell,
But there was no fire, we now know it well,
But I’ll tell you what that man in black did,
Killed 14 parents and 59 kids.
The funeral procession was five thousand strong,
Twenty thousand more watched as they moved along.
The miners they moaned and the mothers they cried,
For all of the 73 who had died.
Take a trip with me in 1913…