Milltown Boy

My brother and I started writing this in my garage around 1995, he kind of coaxed the song out of me by asking me questions

I re-visited the song during the pandemic lock-down and added the mill names. I originally just had making lumber in the chorus but I had the Simpson and Lee mill ( which was a paper mill) in a verse, so I added, making shingles and making paper in the chorus.

I have recorded it many times since finishing it, in different keys, with so-called harmonies and lead guitar in the background but Donna, my wife, asked me to do a cd of some of my songs with just the guitar and me singing so that’s the project this fell under.

BTW, I did have an interview at Nord Door in 1977 and “the man” did tell me that I had no loyalty to the company, because I had started working two weeks before for the Forest Service in the Young Adult Conservation Corp (YACC.) and had already missed nine days because of strep throat. He also told me, “I will put you on the hardest job there is, and if you think the green chain is the hardest job, think again”. He did not offer me a job then, but did call 3 months later to come in for another interview, I told him no thanks. I worked for a year as a YACC crew boss and then went on to work for the Forest Service as a seasonal employee for 5 years.

Milltown Boy
written by: Phil Kane and Mike Kane (2021)

I was raised in the Northwest
In a mill town, on Puget Sound
A mill worker, I was bound to be
Like my father and his friends
Working at Weyerhauser,
mills A, B or C, or Buse Timber or
Simpson and Lee
At the end of the day
I was a mill town boy
A mill worker I was bound to be
Working a shift at a mill X2

Making Lumber, or making shingles, 
or making paper at a mill X2

I penned my name to a mill front gate
and when the man called my name
He said, boy you don't know nothin bout
Loyalty, to the company
And I said, man, you don't know nothin 
bout me, and I walked out his door
I kept on walking out of that town
Up the valley, to the mountains
Where I worked in the forest X2

Making lumber, making shingles
making paper, in the forest X2

Making lumber, making shingles
making paper, in the Northwest X2