Complete performance – filmed live in Feb 2025 by Barry Morris
At the heart of our record, Silent Spike, is the 21-minute epic, Dead Line Creek. The song is a musical depiction of one of the worst atrocities in American history, the murder of over 30 Chinese gold miners by a gang of horse thieves led by Bruce Evans.
A lot of research went into this song, as with all the songs on Silent Spike. The most useful resource is the excellent book
The song is in five sections. The middle section is a guitar solo which is intended to depict the violence and horror of the massacre itself. It was inspired, in large part, by Jimi Hendix’s solo on Machine Gun, itself a depiction of the senseless murder of the Viet Nam war. Here’s an excerpt from one of many live versions.
Lyrics and musical outline
INTRO
Dawn. Once upon a time. Free improv over B pedal and colourful drum/cymbal stuff
MAIN SONG
Slow march in E minor (Bass starts)
Verse 1
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.
GUITAR SOLO 1
Depicts long, slow boat journey upstream
Lots of slow rising lines, crescendos, etc
Verse 2
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.
GUITAR SOLO 2
Depicts the massacre
Violent outbursts, gunfire, terror, horror, sorrow
Verse 3
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.
GUITAR SOLO 3
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.
OUTRO
Night. As opening – B pedal, free. Sorrowful. Fading away. Tragic. Resigned
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