Merle Travis

Come listen you fellows so young and fime
Oh seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mine
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 dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon waydown in the mines

It's a-many a man I've known in my day
Who lived just to labor his life away
Like a friend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine

* Refrain

The midnight, the morning, or the middle of the day
It's the same to the miner who labors away
Where the demons of the death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and youa7re buried alive

* Refrain

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 a-digtgin' my bones

* Refrain