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Jane Doe

from Rust Belt Ballads by Emmett Doyle

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Indigenous women and girls are specifically targeted by sex traffickers in Minnesota and across the US and Canada, and this form of sexual exploitation has been a feature of the colonial system since its inception. In the port of Duluth, Anishinaabe women have long told of sex trafficking that is aimed at the sailors in the port, either on shore or on the ships themselves. Many women who are sexually trafficked end up missing or murdered.

As a former deckhand and current construction worker- two jobs whose workers make up a notable market of Johns- I accepted the task when asked to write a song against trafficking. The song is to the tune of Red Iron Ore, a Laker song, to highlight the way in which these women are treated as commodities.

lyrics

Am C G
Jane Doe was brought in from off of the street
C G Am
Laid out on the table wrapped up in a sheet
Am C G
They wrote down her number without any name
Am C G
A woman was murdered and none was to blame

In the north reservation there’s a chill in the air
And the lines on the faces are heavy with care
And the pain in your belly pounds hard on your brain
And the whiskey like poisons runs thick in the veins

Of the men with the money who come out to play,
Drive up from the port to find out their prey
With presents and promises in a young girl’s ear
There’s more on the docks than you’ll ever get here

And Duluth rusts away by the waves and the heights
And the drunks take the streets in the red neon lights
And the lake sinks the sun and the night turns to black
Out past the harbor and the taconite stacks

And the girls stand cold by the skeleton quay
And they wait for the freight liners off Thunder Bay
Across Gitchegumee they make for the shore
To buy the red women and the red iron ore

The harbor horn screams and the freighter boat lands
The dollars and women are all changing hands
And the sailors buy in where their money is right
To play the great settler night after night

Well I’ve heard it’s been said and I think it’s the truth
That colony days never died in Duluth
For three hundred years they’ve been bargained and sold
To the soldier, the logger, and the iron boat hold

They’ve been killed by the needle and killed by the knife
They’ve been cut down so low that they’ve took their own life
They’ve been put on the Earth in a bed made of thorns
They’ve been sentenced to die since the day they were born

credits

from Rust Belt Ballads, released September 1, 2023

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Emmett Doyle Minneapolis, Minnesota

Emmett is a working class rebel musician- a union carpenter, former river deckhand, raised on a farm in central Minnesota. With American country and blues and Irish traditional roots, he keeps the Long Memory going while singing about today's struggles. His work is rooted in social movements he's an active part of, from labor to defending the earth to fighting hate. ... more

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