Music Inspired by Mining

Here are three songs from the late 1900s that lament the plight of coal miners. They were written by artists from England, Australia, and the United States respectively. They each bring up many of the themes that we learned about in Appalachia. 

We'll be posting a few reflections in the next few days, but until then see what you think about this powerful music. Enjoy. ~Audrey Dawson

Sting - We Work the Black Seam Together - 1985

This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunneled deep inside the nation's soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together
The seam lies underground
Three million years of pressure packed it down
We walk through ancient forest lands
And light a thousand cities with our hands
Your dark satanic mills
Have made redundant all our mining skills
You can't exchange a six inch band
For all the poisoned streams in Cumberland
One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen
We work the black seam together

And should the children weep
The turning world will sing their souls to sleep
When you have sunk without a trace
The universe will suck me into place

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
Deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine - 1990

There'll be food on the table tonight
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight

My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
My life that is lived is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why?

If I yell out at night there's a reply of blue silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why

But if I work all day on the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

The candy store paupers lie to the shareholders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky

So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night

And if the blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won't save me
Who's gonna save me? Who's gonna save me?

But if I work all day on the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
And if I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing's as precious
As a hole in the ground

Who's gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who's gonna save me?
We've got nothing to fear
In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean the streets of a blue sky town

Uncle Tupelo - Coalminers - 1992

Come, all you coal miners
Wherever you may be
And listen to the story
That I relate to thee
My name is nothing extra
But the truth to you I tell
I am a coalminer
And I'm sure, wish you well

I was born in old Kentucky
In a coal camp, born and bred
I know about old beans
Bulldog gravy and cornbread
I know how the miners work and slave
In the coalmines every day
For a dollar in the company store
For that is all they pay

Mining is the most dangerous work
In our land today
Plenty of dirty, slaving work
Very little pay
Coalminers, won't you wake up
And open your eyes and see
What this dirty capitalist system
Has done, you and me

Dear miners, they will slave you
'Til you can't work no more
And what will you get for your labor
But a dollar in the company store
A tumbledown shack to live in
Snow and rain pouring through the top
You have to pay the company rent
Your payments never stop

They take our very lifeblood
They take our children's lives
Take fathers away from children
Take husbands away from wives
Coalminers, won't you organize
Wherever you may be
And make this a land of freedom
For workers, like you and me

I am a coalminer
And I'm sure, I wish you well
Let's sink this capitalist system
To the darkest pits of hell