SPRINGHILL MINE DISASTER



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In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia

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Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine

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there's blood on the coal and the miners lie

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In the roads that never saw sun nor sky (2x)



In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy

Often the earth will tremble and roll

When the earth is restless, miners die

Bone and blood is the price of coal



In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia

Late in the year of fifty-eight

Day still comes and the sun still shines

But it's dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine



Down at the coal face, miners working

Rattle of the belt and the cutter's blade

Rumble of the rock and the walls closed round

The living and the dead men two miles down



Twelve men lay two miles from the pitshaft

Twelve men lay in the dark and sang

Long hot days in the miners tomb

It was three feet high and a hundred long



Three days past and the lamps gave out

Our foreman rose on his elbow and said

We're out of light and water and bread

So we'll live on song and hope instead



Listen for the shouts of the barefaced miners

Listen thru the rubble for a rescue team

Six hundred feet of coal and slag

Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam



Eight days passes and some were rescued

Leaving the dead to lie alone

Thru all their lives they dug their grave

Two miles of earth for a marking stone



In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy

Often the earth will tremble and roll

When the earth is restless, miners die

Bone and blood is the price of coal



Copyright Sing Out

by Peggy Seeger, recorded by Ewan MacColl

@mine @death @work

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