Red Iron Ore
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-07-03

Day 109 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

This was a difficult song.  Bob Dylan wrote, "A folk song has over a thousand faces and you have to meet them all if you want to play this stuff. A folk song may vary in meaning and it might not appear the same from one moment to the next. It depends on who's playing and who's listening." Someone else said, "What you really need to do is listen to what the story is about, get inside of the song; you’re not just playing notes; you’re living the song." This is a complicated story song, about shipping, storms, and shoveling ore on the Great Lakes. Not in my wheelhouse. So, lots more work to be done. Before I finish the book and whatever CDs go with it, I want to map out all the locations and do more research on things I know nothing about—the Foxes, the Beavers, the Skillageles, dunnage, the Dummy, etc."

Sandburg write: "Three of the Great Lakes (see any atlas) are traversed In this odyssey of red iron ore. It is a  log, the diary of a ship and its men on one cruise. The facts are specific. The E. C. Roberts was a  boat. So was The Minch. Riding up Lake Michigan, they passed through death's door; the lake  storms were ugly.

"At Escanaba loading red ore, they "looked like red devils." The crew of The  Minch thumbed their noses and taunted, "We'll see you in Cleveland next Fourth of July." But The E. C. Roberts got there ahead of the fleet. A crew of "bold boys" they were, even if they say so  themselves.

"The singer is humble, "Now my song is ended, I hope you won't laugh." The tune  is old Irish; the repeated line with each verse, "Derry down, down, down derry down," is in old  ballads. It is a virile song, a tale of grappling with harsh elements and riding through, a rattling  tune and a devil-may-care timebeat.

"It may, at first, seem just a lilt with a matter-of-fact story.  It is more than that; it is a little drama; the singer should know what it is to shovel red iron ore;  the singer should know the wide curves of that ship path from Chicago to Cleveland on three Great  Lakes (see any atlas)."

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