They came to Tennessee, drove out the Cherokee

And called this place Ducktown

By 1883, they'd cut down every tree

For fifty miles around

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To burn the copper there, but sulfur filled the air

And soon a deadly rain was falling down

The soil washed away, but the railroad brought each day

Miners to Ducktown

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Back in 1939, we walked out on the mine

Striking for Ducktown

Neighbors, old and young, watched with dying lungs

Scabs roll into town

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They came for you and me like they did the Cherokee

And like these ancient hills, we stood our ground

But both fights would be lost, a desert spread across

What was once Ducktown

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A few hundred of us stayed once it was all hauled away

The earth cut down to bone

To hold the tunnels up, the'd flood the holes we dug

The river cried and moaned

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Then the owners all were gone, packed up and moved on

They flew across the craters, red and brown

Once the mines were bare, they took their gains elsewhere

And left behind Ducktown

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