Loading Coal
Johnny Cash
Ride this train up and down and across this strange, wonderful land. It's almost like a fairyland when you 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 Bald Knob, 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
Yakima, Seminole, Crow, Shawnee
Choctaw, Delaware, Fox, Paiute
Winnebago, Cheyenne, Blackfoot
Navajo, Ute, Comanche, Quapaw
Creek, Apache, Sioux, Chippewa
Ottawa, Hupa, Shoshone
Mohican, Osage, Menominee
Chinook, Arapaho, Nez Percé
Iroquois, Pawnee, Kutenai
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. A few things you don't read in books, things that aren't taught in school. Now, you take this little town we're going through here; this is Beech 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 coal miner like most everybody in Muhlenberg County. Worked in the mines all his life. I guess he didn't have much ambition to do anything else, 'cause they say coal mining 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. We'd 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, listening for Pa to hit the front porch. Then he'd come in, nothing clean but the whites of his eyes. And he'd reach for that lye soap and start scrubbing. 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 living loading coal"
Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to a dag-blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of 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 isn't made for a fellar I'm told
That scoops up a living loading coal
Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to a dag-blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of 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'm a double first cousin to a dag-blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of 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
I'm a double first cousin to a dag-blamed mole
Never get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of loading coal, loading coal