Loading Coal

(album: Ride This Train - 1960)

My pappy said when I was seventeen you're six feet tall and your face is clean
And it don't look right for a boy that old to not make a living loading coal
Loading coal loading coal I'm a double first cousin to a dad blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul and forty 'leven years a loading coal loading coal
Ain't never got acquainted with a dollar bill and I don't ever reckon that I ever will
A dollar ain't made for a fellar I'm told that scoops up a living loading coal
Loading coal loading coal...

I cussed everything in the mining camp from a shovel and my pick to my carbide lamp
But I know mighty well till I grow old I'll still be a cussing but loading coal
Loading coal loading coal...

I know just as well as coal is black one of these days the mines were strike
And I'll sit around starving till I'm finally told
There's a nickel more a ton for loading coal
Loading coal loading coal...