God don’t venture down here
The Devil’s lost your name
Your life hangs in the balance
on this fragile human chain
And when your spirit’s waning
The fear is yours to tame
When you feel the darkness closing
Turn up your carbide flameSo tell God and the Devil they can try
But today’s not gonna be the day we dieI also like this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=whdzP0GHuc4
Throw on some Utah Phillips, nothing better than an old Wobblie to preface getting wobbly with someone special, thank me later.
Methamphetamine by Old Crow Medicine Show
Times, they ain’t like nothing they used to be
From rocky mount’ to northeast Tennessee
Where the river flows with a dusty, coal disease
And the babies whine cause they can’t find nothing to eat
But, mama, she ain’t hungry no more
She’s waiting for a knock on the trailer door
[Chorus]
It’s gonna rock you like a hurricane
It’s gonna rock you 'til you lose sleep
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re out of a job
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re out on the street
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re down on your knees
It’s gonna have you begging pretty please
It’s gonna rock you like a hurricane
Methamphetamine
Don’t need no PhD for a hundred dollar card
Just find a crooked cop and that doctor disregard
Cause when it’s either the mine or the Kentucky national guard
Um, I’d rather sell him a line than to be dying in the coal yard
Now, papa, he ain’t hungry no more
He’s waiting for a knock on the trailer door
[Chorus]
Well, it’s a war out there, and it’s fought by poor white men
From the plateau to the falls of the Cumberland
You better watch your back, cause you just can’t trust a friend
And the method man is going to get you in the end
So listen to the whispering wind
It sounds like a big storm rolling in
It’s gonna rock you like a hurricane
It’s gonna rock you 'til you lose sleep
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re out of a job
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re out on the street
It’s gonna rock you 'til you’re down on your knees
It’s gonna have you begging pretty please
It’s gonna rock you like a hurricane
Methamphetamine
Put down your bibles, pick up your guns.
Blair Mountain here we come.
Here’s another one for the sexy time
Barry White’s growly rendition of “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
Test Dept made an album with the ‘South Wales Striking Miners Choir’ called Shoulder to Shoulder. It contains the track ’ Shockwork ’ which starts with a speech, rallying up the protestors. Test Dept is an industrial band with an emphasis on percussion. Another track on the album is called ’ Fuel to Fight '. They accomplish exactly that with their music. I can’t imagine a more appropriate band to be at such a rally.
I sometimes miss the sort of politically engaged anger of the 80s. I was born in the 90s so perhaps it’s just a romantic look at a past that never was. People are angry now too, but I wonder if it’s not, more than in the past, fused with algorythmically induced hatred of the ‘other’, instead of honest, rightful anger. Like the difference between: ‘I am angry because there is this injustice, and we’re not going to tollerate you standing in our way to solve this injustice’ and ‘I am angry at you because there is this injustice, which is your fault and therefor I hate you’. Clearly the first version leaves room for the ‘unjust person’ to change and choose to go along with this new move towards justice. The second one leaves the ‘unjust person’ feeling, "wait, what… I am not deserving of such hate, I am not evil, you must be crazy for hating me, and therefor I will hate you in return and together we will spiral down into the depths of civil war’.
There are about 14,000 coal miners in West Virginia.
We could give each of them a million dollars and close all of the mines for a little more than the cost of a single aircraft carrier.
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It’s in the evening after dark
When the blackleg miner creeps to work
With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt
There goes the blackleg minerSo join the union while you may
Don’t wait till your dying day
For that may not be far away
You dirty blackleg minerBlackleg Miner (traditional - Roud 3193) - listen to the Steeleye Span version, ideally from the Back in Line album - and don’t break the strike!
Not about striking but still a good one
