Broadcast: January 23, 2011

CHILLY MCGEE

Back up in the mountains where the miners dig their gold; 
   this time of year it's always unbelievably cold. 

The snow piles up on every rock and fence post top; 
   once that snow starts falling, it never seems to stop.

And digging near Chilly Creek in a place that no one could see; 
   was a miner from the flatlands whose name was Albert Chilly McGee.

He dug the gold in summer and he mined the ore all spring; 
   and there wasn't a beautiful day in autumn that he didn't make his shovel sing. 

But during the freeze of winter when the cold was never ending, 
   the miner wrote a letter he would very soon be sending. 

"For my lovely sweetheart, with all my love from me," 
   Wrote the fateful miner name Albert Chilly McGee.

He wrote a love-filled letter and sealed it with a kiss;
   and then he looked around at all the things that he would miss. 

For the miner was now frozen from his toes up to his head;
   and although he didn't know it, he was already dead. 

But he kept right on a-working as cold as he could be;
   he was a ghost miner now, Albert Chilly McGee.

The love of gold still drives him to work the mine each day;
   to anyone who wanders up there, Here's a few words you should pray: 

"I'm thankful for the sunrise and the warmth that it still brings
   I'm thankful for a fire and other wonderfully hot things.

For in that mine near Chilly Creek I'm glad it isn't me; 
   Digging a frozen, golden grave is Albert Chilly McGee."

The End