A song about being proud, and sometimes too proud, for your own good, for your family's good, and for the earth's good. But if you're not proud, you're ashamed, and if you're ashamed, you're dead, so sometimes it's hard to be any other way. This is sung by our neighbor, Lynne, who's always singing on her porch and who, once she heard our song, wanted to give it a go. We recorded this in her kitchen. Lynne's a woman with four children, one nearly full-grown.
The song makes references to the murder of Joseph 'Jock' Yablonski by W.A. Boyle; the unionization of the Brookside mine in Harlan, Kentucky, in the 1970's; the murder of Lawrence Jones durings those Harlan strikes; the 2008 Kingston Coal Fly Ash Slurry Spill; Natural Gas drilling in Pennsylvania ("fracking" or "fracturing"); Alternative Energy; the concept of Clean Coal; and the consolidation of the high schools in Harlan County (the closing of the Evarts High School, Home of the Wildcats).
Lyrics:
What do you want me to say?
I don't know any other way.
You talk about conditions, and gettin union recognition.
Then you just drive away.
But I gotta live here you know.
I can't be no better than these folks.
Cause if you're better, you're alone, and Boyle killed Jock in his home;
They say your outfits a joke.
And of course I know we deserve that higher wage.
And of course I can imagine riding in that safer cage.
If I could tell the truth I'd say I'm just plain old afraid
To bite the hand that sees every Friday that I'm paid.
But truth's a luxury you know.
The price is hanging your head low.
So I won't take home your pamphlet, I'll act proud and tell you "Damn it,
"We're just fine here, you can go."
But now they've changed all the tides.
Heard what that boy caught in his side?
If for more vacation days, a Lawrence Jones is what we trade,
His wife would keep him every time.
And I've been checking on her thirty years and thirty days.
From the strikes in our home county to the flood up Kingston way.
The pickets lines, the fly ash, and mountains in between.
It's hard to give a damn when the kids are still as lean.
What do you want me to say?
I know there's acid in the rain.
But they closed the school in Evarts, my wife barely got her severance
And up north they all just frack for veins.
The lobby tells us to believe
The coal today is burning clean.
And though my grandson will be coughing from his carriage to his coffin,
The lie will keep him in some green.
And I don't know what to think of all of this.
I'm five years from retiring, a foreman on my shift.
And the hand that's kept me on, I know soon will cut me down,
When the sulfur in my heart wants to take me to the ground.
And of course I know that the sun's a better way.
Those panels leave the mountains be, if you ask me that's okay.
But this ain't me admitting that my forty years of mining
Are the reason all the people like to say the earth is dying.
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COAL MINERS HIGHWAY Connie Heltonby MegaHolywater532 views
RIP Lawrence Jones.
Tony2581 1 month ago
I can't believe this has only 450 views, it is deserving of so many more. "If for more vacation days, a Lawrence Jones is what we trade, His wife would keep him every time." is such a heartbreaking line.
halibutpie 1 month ago
Beautiful and touching.
LylyCSM2 2 months ago
This is amazing.
SquadMate123 4 months ago
I really liked this song.
zzzave 5 months ago