We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

Minnesota 13 was a strain of cold-resistant corn developed by the U of M in the 1880s, and the name of the moonshine that Central Minnesotan farmers made during Prohibition.

The Avon Hills, where I grew up, are not great farmland. They are rocky, hilly, swampy, forested land with a patchwork of soils left over by the glaciers that dumped dirt from across the continent there. But they were the ideal location, in the 1920s, for making moonshine in the wooded glens from the MN 13 corn grown by the rich farmlands all around.

Central Minnesota's settler farmers were mostly German Catholics. They didn't take kindly to Prohibition, with its anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic overtones, especially after facing a wave of discrimination in the First World War. Our tight knit community kept making and exporting this liquor until we were the biggest moonshine producing county outside of Appalachia. The stuff got around so much that the FBI came in, and had to set up networks of informants and resort to raids and barn burning to flush out the industry. They never succeeded.

lyrics

Am C G
Stearns County’s plains of waving grains Is the place that I was born
D Em Am
to till the field and cut the yield and grow the yellow corn
Am D Em
Come July, it’s up knee high And still it’s growing green
D Em Am
but tall and gold when it got cold was Minnesota 13

My father’s still would make its fill outside of Holdingford
and ‘way out back in the sugar shack that’s where the stuff was stored
to sell the brew, it helped us through some bitter times and lean
for the very best in the whole midwest was Minnesota 13

Well that liquor’s name earned it fame, Spokane to Buffalo
so they sent a man to make a plan to cut our whiskey flow
That Mr. Kent was an awful gent each inch of him was mean
and to every cop, he swore he’d stop our Minnesota 13

In every town the county ‘round the feds were on our tail
they’d scour your car to find a jar and throw you into jail
the town police had palms to grease, they’d always find us clean
no search or raid could prove we made that Minnesota 13

Then the FBI they got some spies and they posted a reward
so someone went to Mr. Kent and told them where it’s stored
you go on up to Meyer’s farm be sure that you ain’t seen
and out behind, that’s where you’ll find the Minnesota 13

So the lawmen came in the dead of night and never told a soul
They gathered ‘round without a sound until they had us whole
then they went out back and fired the shack, iit burned like gasoline
like the flames of hell, we knew that smell was Minnesota 13

My dad got free in ‘33 and they tore that liquor law down
But I keep my still up in the hills a mile outside of town
for I’ve got no joy for Alphabet boys coming here to glean
and I’ll drop the man that lays a hand on my Minnesota 13

credits

from Rust Belt Ballads, released September 1, 2023

license

tags

about

Emmett Doyle image

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

contact / help

Contact Emmett Doyle

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Emmett Doyle, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now