III. Men at Work: 5. Miners' Songs

III. 5. MINERS' SONGS  
 


CONTENTS: III. 5. Miners' Songs
Oh, My Liver and My Lungs. . . . . . . . .272
Down, Down, Down..........273
Pay Day at Coal Creek..........274
T'he Coal Miner's Child........, . 276


III. 5. MINERS' SONGS  
 "Pm sleepy" he said. (€Pve been walking all night. Can't sleep when the pain hits me. Have to keep going to keep up the circulation."
The fingers of both of his hands were curled and yellow like the feet of a chicken and the flesh of his arms was pulpy like dry, rotten wood.
"Got this way in the mines" he said. HWe was cleaning out an old holey getting it pumped dry, and pulling out the old machinery. I was foreman and we did a record job. Nobody has equaled our record since, but they wouldn't give us no stove to dry our clothes at. I asked the boss for oney but he saidy €Noy I guess you'll get along.'
"We'd take our clothes off wet at nighty and when we'd come to -put *em on in the morning they would be frozen. Welly a little while of that and I couldn't turn my head. Three of the other men later died of consumption, and if I didn't die right awayy I been dying by inches ever since. Look at those hands."
They were gnarled like chickens' feet.
(<The doctor said I ought to sue the company, but I said, €Awy helly noy I'll be all right.' I just had a stiff necky then, but later ony when it hit my arms, I went to a lawyer. What do you suppose? The man that owned the company had moved to Minnesota and died. And that boss had told lies about us9 said that we were lazy. How could he say that when we'd made a record for them? And before he diedy a feller told mey that boss confessed to what he had done.
aSo nowadays I have to walk. It keeps up the circulation."
OH, MY LIVER AND MY LUNGS
c. No. 597. Mrs. Frost Woodhull, San Antonio, Texas, 1936.
"I learned this song from my father who used to hear the miners sing it in Pennsylvania.n             —Mrs. Frost Woodhull, San Antonio, Texas. 
  
  
 1   Oh, my liver and my lungs, my lights and my legs, They're paining me, they're paining me 3
My heart is sad, my head is bad, And I think Pm going crazy.
2  Crushed by the days of endless toil And sleepless nights of woe,
There is naught but anguish ev'rywhere As on through life we go.
 
DOWN, DOWN, DOWN
P. 6, Pennsylvania Folk Songs and Ballads, George G. Korson, Bucknell University, Lewis-burg, Pa. Improvised by William Keating, transcribed and arranged by Melvin LeMon.
"An anthracite mine workers first day on a new job" 
  
  
 1   With your kind attention a song I will trill, All ye who must toil with the pick and the drill, And sweat for your bread in that hole at Oak Hill, That goes down, down, down.
2  "When I was a boy," said my daddy to me, "Stay out of Oak Hill, take my warning" said he, "Or with dust you'll be choked and a pauper you'll be, Broken down, down, down."
3  But I went to Oak Hill and I asked for a job, A mule for to drive or a gangway to rob;
The boss said, "Come out, Bill, and follow the mob That goes down, down, down."
4  The lampman he squints through the windie at me,
"What's your name? What's your age? What's your number?" says he. "Bill Keating; I'm thirty; my check's twenty-three; Mark that down, down, down."
 
5   I asked them what tools would I need in the place. "Very few," said the boss with a grin on his face; "One number six shovel and darn little space. While you're down, down, down."
6  With a note from the boss to the shaft I made haste, Saluted the topman, in line took my place;
Sayin', "Gimme a cage, for Pve no time to waste, Let me down, down, down."
7  "All aboard for the bottom!" the topman did yell; We stepped on the cage, and he gave her the bell; Then from under our feet like a bat out of—well, We went down, down, down.
8   I groped in the gangway; they gave me a scoop.
The "out" was just fired, muck was heaped to the roof. I stooped and I scooped till my back looped the loop, Stoopin* down, down, down.
9   You could look at the rib or the face or the top, Ne'er a sign of a laggin' or slab or of prop; Some day I expect that old mountain to drop And come down, down, down.
10 Last pay day my buddy he cussed and he swore, In fact it's enough to make any man sore, When your wife drags your wages all out in the store, While you're down, down, down.
company didn't pay no money, not at that time. It broke the company. Wives never got anything" 
  
  
 i Pay day, pay day, oh, pay day, Pay day at Coal Creek tomorrow, Pay day at Coal Creek tomorrow.
2   Pay day, pay day, oh, pay day,
Pay day don't come at Coal Creek no more, Pay day don't come no more.
3   Bye-bye, bye-bye, oh, bye-bye, Bye-bye, my woman, Pm gone, Bye-bye, my woman, Pm gone.
4  You'll miss me, you'll miss me, you'll miss me, You'll miss me when Pm gone,
You'll miss me when Pm gone.
5   Pm a poor boy, Pm a poor boy, Pm a poor boy, Pm a poor boy and a long ways from home. Pm a poor boy and a long ways from home.
6   He's a rider, he's a rider, he's a rider,
Oh, he's a rider, but he'll leave that rail some time, He's a rider, but he'll leave that rail some time,
 
THE COAL MINER'S CHILD
ab. No. 2557. Aunt Molly Jackson, New York City, 1939. See Cox, p. 4465 Ja.2, p. 485 Sc.2, p. 364.
"This song is a true story concerning a Harlan County miner's child. The miner was killed in the fall-like, and the mother of the child then died in the winter-like in 1928. The same day that the mother was buried', why, this child went to a rich coal operator's house and asked him to give her a home or prepare a home for her where she could have something to eat. He turned her away and thought that she'd went back in the mining camp or somewhere, and the next morning she was found dead in the hall of the house. When the handy man of the place come and reported it, why, this man told him to go and pick up her body and get it out of the way. He didn't see why that the miners' children, them coal miners' trash, should come and die on his hands. Says it looked like they could find some other place to die. And that is the story that I composed this song from."
-—Aunt Molly Jackson.
This is a version of the old sentimental ballad, "The Orphan Girl," Moderately slow, free J = 96 $            2                        ^
i This is the story of a coal miner's child, A little girl only nine years old, She was found dead in a rich man's home. She died from hunger and cold, She died from hunger and cold, She was found dead in a rich man's home, Yes, she died of hunger and cold.
2  "I have no home," said the coal miner's child At the door of a rich man's hall,
As she trembling stood on the marble steps And leaned against a polished wall.
3   "My father was killed in the coal mines," she said— Tears dimmed her eyes so bright,
"And, last of all, my mother is dead,
I'm a orphan alone tonight,
I'm a orphan alone tonight $
And, last of all, my mother is dead,
I'm a orphan alone tonight."
4  The night was cold and the snow fell fast, But the rich man closed his door,
And his proud lips spurned with scorn when he said,
"I've no room, no bread for the poor,
No room, no bread for the poor";
His proud lips spurned with scorn when he said,
"I've no room, no bread for the poor."
5  "I must freeze," she said, as she sank on the steps And tried to cover her feet.
Her ragged dress was covered with snow, Yes, covered with snow and sleet.
Our Singing Country 
 6  The rich man slep' on a velvet couch. And dreamed of his silver and gold, While the orphan laid on a bed of snow, A-dying from hunger and cold.
7  The morning dawned and the coal miner's child Was found lying in his hallway there.
aGo take up her body and get it out of my way,53 Was the words the rich man said.