Rox in the Box
More actions
Written by Colin Meloy of American indie band The Decemberists and released on their 2011 album The King is Dead.[1] The Longest Johns posted a cover of the song to YouTube on 17 April 2024.
Factoids
The lyrics are about the Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine disaster of 1917 in Butte, Montana. Though previously fully unionized, beginning in 1914, labor disputes and corporate consolidation had all but ended union activity among the town's miners.[2] Meanwhile, wartime demand for copper had led to increased production and deteriorating safety conditions in the mines. On the night of June 8, 1917, ironically as part of an attempt to install a sprinkler system, a foreman inspecting a damaged electrical cable with an open-flame lantern ignited a fire which burned for five days and claimed the lives of 168 men, most due to asphyxiation as smoke and toxic gas spread quickly through the network of interconnected mine shafts.[3]
Though most of the survivors escaped in the initial rush out when the fire began, a few trapped at deeper levels managed to construct makeshift bulkheads (dividing walls) to isolate themselves from the gas and smoke, allowing them to survive until rescue, in some cases over 50 hours after the onset of the fire.[4]
A headframe is the structure built on the surface above a mineshaft, used to hoist workers, equipment, and materials in and out of the mine.
Lee refers to the side of an object like a hill or wall sheltered from the wind; here it refers metaphorically to the bulkheads separating the trapped men from the toxic air outside their makeshift shelters.
The instrumental break between the final two choruses (original to the Decemberists' version) is a traditional tune called "Raggle Taggle Gypsy", originating in 18th c. Scotland and widely popular throughout the English-speaking folk tradition.[5]
Lyrics
Get the rocks in the box
Get the water right down to your socks
This bulkhead's built of fallen brethren bones
We all do what we can
We endure our fellow man
And we sing our songs to the headframes' creaks and moans
{Chorus}
And it's one two three
On the wrong side of the lee
What were you meant for?
What were you meant for?
And it's seven eight nine
You get your shuffle back in line
And if you ever make it to ten you won't make it again
And if you ever make it to ten you won't make it again
And you won't make a dime
On this gray Granite Mountain Mine
Of dirt you're made and to dirt you will return
So while we're living here
Let's get this little one thing clear
There's plenty of men to die; you don't jump your turn
{Chorus}
{Instrumental break}
{Final chorus }
And it's one two three
On the wrong side of the lee
What were you meant for?
Whatever you're meant for
And it's seven eight nine
You get your shuffle back in line
And if you ever make it to ten you won't make it again
And if you ever make it to ten you won't make it again
And if you ever make it to ten you won't make it again