Dead Line Creek

Dawn. Once upon a time. Free improv over B pedal and colourful drum/cymbal stuff

MAIN SONG

Slow march in E minor (Bass starts)

Hell’s Canyon:
A place as cruel as its name.

Wild country
Without angels, a landscape of pain.

A prison
Stone walls eight thousand feet high.

Thirty-four
Chinamen went there to die.

They traveled
To a place called Dead Line creek,

A fortune
There they would seek.

Sixty-five
Miles journey to make.

Thirty-four
Men fighting upstream on the Snake.

Depicts long, slow boat journey upstream

Lots of slow rising lines, crescendos, etc

Bruce Evans
They called him Old Blue.

An outlaw
Close to pure evil as folks ‘round there knew.

A rustler
A horse thief and a murderin’ man.

His Old Blue Gang

Spread blood and smoke from Lostine to La Grande.

They did it
They did it for gold, and they did it for hate.

Set an ambush
And laid there in wait.

Then Evans
Gave the signal, unleashed the attack.

They shot
Most of those Chinamen right in the back.

Depicts the massacre

Violent outbursts, gunfire, terror, horror, sorrow

They traded
Lead for gold, and every life they could take.

Thirty-four
Dead men on the shores of the snake.

The gang gathered
All the gold, and they gathered the dead.

Blue’s blood lust
Was still so high that he said:

“Take your knives
And put our mark on each of these men.

Then throw
All their bodies in the river again”

Thirty-four
Men had one last journey to make.

Back downstream
65 miles down the Snake.

Depicts bodies of the fallen miners floating silently downstream. The murderers walk away. History turns its back.

Descending melodic lines, falling figures, diminuendos. Mournful. Silence as darkness falls.

Night. As opening – B pedal, free. Sorrowful. Fading away. Tragic. Resigned