merle travis
Songs from and for the working class became Merle Travis' trade mark. Only the two songs "Sixteen Tons" and this one would have given him a place in the history of roots country music, but he wrote a lot more throughout his troublesome career, pestered by alcoholism and other personal problems. Besides, his way of playing guitar - steady thumb rythm on bass strings and picking notes with the rest of the fingers - became a template for roots musicians. Like myself.
Nowadays the song is best remembered from Johnny Cash's live performance at Folsom Prison in 1968 (he recorded it B-side for singel "Understand Your Man" back in '64), but Travis himself recorded it first for "Folk Songs of the Hills", 1946; also released as a single.
come and listen you fellows so young and so fine
and seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mines
it will form as a habit and seep in your soul
till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal ...
it's many a man I have seen in my day
who lived just to labor his whole life away
like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
a man will have lust for the lure of the mines ...
midnight or the morning or the middle of day
is the same to the miner who labors away
where the demons of death often come by surprise
one fall of the slate and you're buried alive ...
I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll
my body will blacken and turn into coal
then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
and pity the miner digging my bones ...
... where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
where danger is double and pleasures are few
where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
For the following CHORD section, fullscreen/horizontal mobile is recommended.
Chords in brackets may be omitted.
E E7 A B7 come and listen you fellows so young and so fine E E7 A E and seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mines E E7 A B7 it will form as a habit and seep in your soul E E7 A E till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal E B5 B7 A E where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew B5 B7 A E where danger is double and pleasures are few E E7 A B7 where the rain never falls and the sun never shines E E7 A E it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
