1. |
Dark Lords Of The Mine
03:55
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Google Richard Burton
Dick Cavett New York 1980
The first in his family
To not go underground
The underworld is ours
The dark lords of the mine
Borrowing the earth
Until the end of time
Standing on the corner
Bow legs and hostile eyes
Arrogant strut,
Muscular buttocks
5 foot 3 is the perfect size
For sneering at the doctor’s daughter
Looking down from below
We’re the aristocracy
Of the working class you know
The underworld is ours
The darks lords of the mine
Burrow in the earth
Waiting for our time
Beneath the Bay of Biscay
Into Wales from Basque Country
Out under the Atlantic
To Pennsylvania and Kentucky
The Great Atlantic Fault
That all miners share
The gorgeous glistening seam
Black as Cleopatra’s hair
The coal dust in the air
The cold eternal rain
Singing in the dark
Before the machines came
I came down here so young
In my nails my lungs
The dust is settled now
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2. |
Chestnut Blight
02:53
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Tall white pines go sailing across the ocean
When masts rose like a forest from the deep
Then the skidders came and every little tree was broken
Or left clinging to the hills that were too steep
When the last chestnut tree fell many hearts were broken
Those trees flowered like a snowstorm in july
They brought along fat hogs and folding money
Then one by one they rotted out and died
Now the water in the well’s not clean to drink
It burns like acid and it’s blacker than a lawyer’s ink
Jesus walked on water in the bible
But now the creek’s so filled with slag even i won’t sink
Down in the mines many lives have been taken
Down in the mines many lives have been lost
Money comes and goes down where quicksilver flows
And the miners left behind to pay the cost
When the last hunk of coal has been mined
We’ll be judged by the deeds we’ve done not the deeds we’ve signed
When there is nothing in these hills left to steal
We can buy it all back from the bank at a real good deal
Now the water in the well’s not clean to drink
It burns like acid and it’s blacker than a lawyer’s ink
Jesus walked on water in the bible
But now the creek’s so filled with slag even i won’t sink
When the last vein is all played out and gone
One last train is gonna come and haul away this song
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3. |
Abernant 84/85
02:05
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The wind and the rain beat on his fair head
As he stood in the darkness wishing he was dead
Only seventeen when he went down the mine
And it’s a year that he’s been out on the line
Bitter tears rolled down his cheek
He couldn’t stand to hear talk of defeat
Despair in a terraced house and ghosts from the past
The living death they’d fought is here at last
The weeds choke and the rust corrodes
You’d think it’d have been fifty years
Since the place was closed
Vengeance is not ours it belongs to those
Who seek to destroy us
How much more is there left to lose?
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4. |
Judy Belle Thompson
04:07
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Judy Belle Thompson she opened her eyes
When shown the limp bodies her grandson held high
Fists filled with fish found dead in the stream
From valley fills bursting just to get to the seam
No glimmer just grey with eyes milky white
Judy Belle Thompson could not tell him why
Blackwater spills the cup’s ravaged lip
Turning Marfork Hollow into Markfork Crypt
Judy Belle Thompson she woke up that day
From neighbor nor power she would not give sway
Her voice loud and clear her aim pure and true
Judy Belle Thompson told Massey you’re through
With keeping us down with your crown made of coal
And burying us under our own poisoned soil
Rock and dirt overburden it’s called
To rain down upon us and silence us all
Ironweed binds the flowering fields
The roots run deep its strength will not yield
Now Ironweed blooms upon her grave
Lifted by voices from mountains
Bloodstained
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5. |
QZ3AK2000073 - Canaries
03:52
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Lloyd George knew my father
Father knew Lloyd George
He stayed at home and dug for coal
To wage the First World War
Why was he born so beautiful?
Why was he born at all?
An old canary on his perch - we wait to see him fall
It’s a pretty gift to serve the king
And march off to the front
A place so wonderful they seldom
Bother to come back
As gas rolls through the trenches
The early warning sounds
Clinging to the ceiling in black tunnels underground
Rolled up on a pigeon’s leg
In Morse code on the wire
News of the explosion told of
Gas and rock and fire
So I came home a new born babe
To see is to believe
Curled up, trembling at the hearth
Absent without leave
Singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”
With the Colliery brass band
We buried those recovered
With their pay-books in their hands
Lloyd George knew my father
But my father was not found
He wears a crown of anthracite
In darkness underground
The home fires burn and even
Mrs. Pankhurst got in line
Kaiser Bill was on the run
And victory is thine
And shell-shocked young deserters
Were lined up against the wall
Canaries falling to the earth - A warning to us all
The best will choke in darkness both
On Flanders mud and slag
A pretty gift to put before
The Empire and the flag
Why were they born so beautiful?
Why were they born at all?
Canaries will fall from their perch
If danger should befall
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6. |
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It’s in the evenin after dark
When the blackleg miner creeps to work
With his moleskin pants an dirty shirt
There goes the blackleg miner
He takes his pick and doon he goes
To hew the coal that lies below
But there’s not a woman in this town row
Would look at the black miner
Oh, Delaval is a terrible place
They rub wet clay in the blacklet’s face
Around the pit-heaps they run a foot race
To catch the blackleg miner
Divvn’t gan near the Seghill mine
Across the way they stretch a line
To catch the throat an break the spine
Of the dirty blackleg miner
Tak your tools an gear as well
An hoy them doon the pit of hell
Doon ye go an fare ye well
Ye dirty blackleg miner
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7. |
Phoebe Snow
03:43
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Burning a hole in my pocket
Like my last dime
I love that Houston Rocket like it was a crime
Bituminous always a mess
You’re dirty mined
Oh Kenntucky
West Virginia
What was that fucking X you signed
Burning a hole in my oh-oh zone
Turning the tide on my house and home
The U.M.W. of A.
Still waiting by the phone
You’re burning a hole in my oh-oh zone
All those died to feed their families
All those who died to save their friends
All those who died for no good reason
No disrespect
Please please tell me how this ends
Bituminous always a mess
You’re dirty mined
Oh Kentucky
West Virginia
What was that fucking X you signed
Your burning a hole in my
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Zone
Will the cinders fly?
No no no
Will they burn my eyes?
No no no
Oh tower man of Buffalo
With your levers bright
Will you besmirch my gloves of white?
No baby no
Upon the road of anthracite we will ride ride ride ride
Tonight
Phoebe
Beamining
Be me
Oh Lackawanna
Oh Lackawanna
Oh Lackawanna oh
So pure so pure
So pure so pure
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8. |
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We read in the paper and the radio tells
Us to raise our children to be miners as well.
Oh tell them how safe the mines are today
And to be like your daddy, bring home a big pay.
They lure us with money, it sure is a sight.
When you may never live to see the daylight
With your name among the big headlines
Like that awful disaster at the Mannington mine
So don’t you believe them, my boy,
That story’s a life.
Remember the disaster at the Mannington mine
Where seventy-eight miners were buried alive,
Because of unsafe conditions your daddy died.
There’s a man in a big house way up on the hill
Far, far from the shacks where the poor miners live.
He’s got plenty of money, Lord, everything’s fine
And he has forgotten the Mannington mine.
Yes, he has forgotten the Mannington mine.
There is a grave way down in the Mannington mine
There is a grave way down in the Mannington mine
Oh, what were their last thoughts, what were their cries
As the flames overtook them in the Mannington mine.
So don’t you believe them, my boy,
That story’s a lie.
Remember the disaster at the Mannington mine
Where seventy-eight good men so uselessly died
Oh don’t follow your daddy to the Mannington mine.
How can God forgive you, you do know what you’ve done.
You’ve killed my husband, now you want my son.
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9. |
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Never thought I’d see the day
They’re opening the mines again
So long again and miles away
Never thought I’d see the day
Never thought about the daylight
Heads about in darkness bendin
Threats of closures never endin
Nothing left to do but fight
There were soldiers dressed as police
Come from Scotland and from England
To crack some eggs and break some teeth
To tame the enemy within
Before they voted to go back
I left my wife and moved to Brixton
I broke some bloody student’s nose
Called us traitors called us quitters
I did my time I did not stay
I’m growing pot in Martin County
They blew the mountaintop away
Never thought I’d see the day
Never thought we’d lose the strike
Never thought I’d see the day
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10. |
Dreadful Memories
02:19
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Dreadful memories, how they linger
How they ever pierce my soul
How we lived down in Kentucky
Died from hunger and from cold
Precious fathers, wearied mothers
Living in those dreadful shacks
Little children cold and hungry
With no clothing on their backs
Dreadful gun thugs and stool pigeons
Always flock around our door
What’s the crime that we’ve committed?
Nothing, only that we’re poor
All these memories, how they haunt me
Make me want to organize
Makes me want to help the workers
Make them open up their eyes
Dreadful memories, how they linger
How they ever haunt my soul
How we lived down in Kentucky
Died from hunger and from cold
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11. |
Coorie Doon
03:34
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Coorie doon, Coorie doon, Coorie doon, my darling
Coorie doon a day
Coorie doon, Coorie doon, Coorie doon, my darling
Coorie doon a day
Lie doon my dear and in your ear
To help you close your eyes
I’ll sing a song, a slumber song
A Miner’s lullaby
You’re daddy’s doon the mine my darling
Doon in the curbly mane
You’re daddy’s walking coal my darling
For his ain wee wean
There’s darkness doon the mine my darling
Darkness, dust and damp
But we must have our heat, our light
Our fire and our lamp
Your daddy coories doon, my darling
Doon in a three foot seam
So you can coorie doon, my darling
Coorie doon and dream
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12. |
Blue Scars Of A Miner
02:37
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Is there life after coal?
What future for the collier?
The scab and the hardliner both
Wear the blues scars of a miner
Rising up now from the earth
We’re branded and we’re blinded
The sunlight and the dole queue boast
The blue scars of a miner
Is there anything but drink
Drugs and last reminders
A single teardrop rolling down
The blue scars of a miner
And in my dreams I work again
And what was lost I find
Pockets full down at the club
A chorus of “Delilah”
Now I’ll lay be down to die
Let the darkness bind us
What I earned I earned for you
The blue scars of a miner
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Freakons Chicago, Illinois
Mekons + Freakwater = FREAKONS
Freakwater and the Mekons have joined forces to sing songs
about coal mining. FREAKONS, the new eponymously-titled album on Fluff & Gravy Records, is the first fruit of this visionary musical union.
... more
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