I'm
just a miner in a mining town. I
dig like a mole in a hole in the ground.
When the sun comes up till the sun goes down,
I don't see much sun when I'm down in the ground.
Soft coal and hard coal and lead and zinc
and all other kinds of hard stuff.
It's a hard livin'.
Got up this mornin' in the same ol' way,
Drunk my hot coffee to start off my day.
My wife gimme breakfast in
her stockin' feet,
And I kissed the kids in
bed, and then I walked
down the street.
Just walkin' along, watchin' the sun come up, I
was just thinkin' and wonderin'.
Wonderin' and thinkin'.
Centralia here is a pretty little town.
You can see
Illinois for miles around.
Can't see too good with my eyes full of sleep
though. I'm gonna quit mining some
day and I'm gonna sleep about a week.
Just solid sleep.
Hard down, hard up, good
old warm sleep.
Dream myself up a lot of pretty dreams
about pretty mine holes
and pretty mine bosses and
pretty mine owners
and pretty women all over the place.
Most men don't talk what's
eatin' on their minds
about different ways of dying down
here in the mines.
But every morning we walk
along and joke
about the mines caving in,
the dust and the smoke.
One little wild spark of fire
blowin' us sky high and crooked.
One little spark blowin' us
cross -eyed and crazy.
Up to shake hands with all the
Lord's little angels.
Well, we knock at the
gate and stand and laugh,
An elevator man drops us down his shaft,
We scatter and kneel
and crawl different places
With fumes in our eyes and
dust on our faces,
Gas on our stomach and
water on our kneecap,
Aches an d pains and rheumatism,
All kinds of crazy pictures fly ing
through our heads.
Well, this spark did hit us in the number five,
I don't know if anybody ever did come out alive.
I got carried out with a busted head,
the lady said there's a hundred and eleven of us dead.
Well, this ain't my first explosion,
I come through two cave -ins an d two more fires before this.
Twenty -two dead down in
Ohio and thirty -six I seen in
Kentucky later.
And there's a hundred and eleven here in
Sun
Trail.
Well, it seems like the very best men go down,
they don't come back in these mining towns.
Keep on a -wondering how things would be
if a cave -in had come to the
Senator's seat.
Or a big explosion of some kind was
to go off up there in them
Congress walls.
Wonder what sort of words and messages that
they'd write on their slates.
Wonder if they'd hire anybody
to come down to them
Senate chambers
and put in some safety devices,
nine hundred dollars worth.
I think it's just about enough
loose gas
around that
Capitol
Dome up there, though,
to make a mighty big
blow if a spark ever hits it just right.