Sean Hills - What's Left of Sam McGee, Pt. 1 lyrics

There are strange things done
In the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold
The Northern Lights have seen strange sights
But the strangest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee
Where the cotton blooms and blows
Why he left his home in the
South to roam 'round the Pole
God only knows he was always cold
But the land of gold seemed to
Hold him like a spell
Though he’d often say in his homely way
That he'd sooner live in hell
On a Christmas Day we were mushing
Our way over the Dawson trail
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail
If our eyes we’d close
Then the lashes froze till
Sometimes we couldn't see
It wasn't much fun
But the only one to whimper was Sam McGee

And that very night
As we lay packed tight in
Our robes beneath the snow
And the dogs were fed
And the stars o'erhead were
Dancing heel and toe
He turned to me, and Cap, says
He, I'll cash in this trip, i guess
And if I do, i'm asking that you won't
Refuse my last request

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no
Then he says with a sort of moan
It’s the cursèd cold
And it’s got right hold till I'm
Chilled clean through to the bone
Yet ’tain't being dead it's my awful dread
Of the icy grave that pains
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair
You'll cremate my last remains

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed
So I swore I would not fail
And we started on at the streak of
Dawn but God! he looked ghastly pale
He crouched on the sleigh
And he raved all day of his home in Tennessee
And before nightfall a corpse was all
That was left of Sam McGee