Loading Coal

Ride this train up and down and across a strange wonderful land

It's almost like a fairyland when you to think about it

You go through places with names like Tuscaloosa, Kokomo, Muskogee, Oshkosh, Saginaw

Eureka, Bandera, Battle Creek, Sioux City, Chattanooga

Hattiesburg, Lynchburg and Baltinare, Arkansas

You see I'm a million different people from all over the world

And I've been coming to this country for hundreds of years

This was the Promised Land for me

But let's not forget that when I came here

There were already millions of people living in teepees along the rivers

And hunting deer and buffalo for food and shelter

And it's with a little regret, that I think of how I pushed them back

And crowded them out to claim this land for myself or for another country

But the Indians' hearts must have been full of music

For they left names with me that seem to sing

Names like Mohawk, Mandan, Kickapoo Cree, Yacoma, Seminole, Crow, Shawnee

Choctaw, Delaware, Fox, Paiute, Winnebago, Cheyenne, Blackfoot

Navajo, Ute, Comanche, Quapaw Creek, Apache, Sioux, Chippewa

Ardua, Hupa, Shoshone, Mow, Hicano, Sage, Menomini

Shinouk, Arapaho, Nez, Perce, Iroquois, Pony, Cutenai

Flathead, Chickasaw, Pueblo, Yuma, Pima, Pomo, Caddo

Well a lot of them are still with me and I'm glad

It's for sure their names will always be with me

But let's look a little at the heart and muscle of this land

Few things you don't read in books, things that aren't taught in school

Now, you take this little town we're goin' through here this is Beach Creek Kentucky

And right down, there in the valley, that's where our house used to be

It was a little shotgun shack with a spring out back

And a smokehouse, and another little bitty house, and that's about all

My pa was a coalminer like most everybody in Mulengerg County

Worked in the mines all his life

I guess he didn't have much ambition to do anything else

Cause they say coalmining kinda gets in your blood

Matter of fact, pa said if they ever drained the blood out of him

It would be blacker than blackstrap molasses

When I was a kid I used to sit at the fireplace there with mom

And wait on pa to get in from the mine

And we'd sure get anxious if he was ever late

Ma would rock back and forth and watch the clock listin' for pa to hit the front porch

Then he'd come in nothin' clean but the whites of his eyes

And he'd reach for that lie-soap and starts scrubbin'

And I'd stand back and watch him and say to myself

Boy, I'll be glad when I get big enough to work in the mines

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 livin' loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' 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 loadin' coal

Loadin' 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 livin' loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' 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 loadin' coal

Loadin' 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 cussin' but loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' 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 loadin' coal

Loadin' coal

I know just as well as coal is black

One of these days the mines were strike

And I'll sit around starvin' till I'm finally told

There's a nickel more a ton for loadin' coal

Loadin' coal loadin' 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 loadin' coal

Loadin' coal