Songs about coal mining

I'm spending a weekend with my brother soon, and we are both music fans, but our tastes are different.

Last time I visited, we talked about when he used to live in Appalachia, where he developed a taste for country and folk music but also a deep antipathy to the coal industry.

Anyway, he likes "roots music", which is not my strong suit, but any style is fine unless it's thrash metal or something. I think he'd like to hear some real British folk music too.

I want to make a playlist he can listen to in his car - stuff like "Working in a Coal Mine", "Coal Miner's Daughter", but I am stumped.

Thanks!

...and how can I forget "Dark as a Dungeon"??

hmm. must be a bunch of old union/protest songs that would fit in here.

her recordings might be a bit more stark than what you're looking for, but: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Molly_Jackson

The Dubliners: 'Springhill Mining Disaster' (1973).

Sting: 'We Work The Black Seam' (1985).

U2: 'Red Hill Mining Town' (1987).

This is brilliant and heartbreaking IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EghBJOb-UZ4

And gold not coal:

Cowboy Junkies, 'Mining for Gold' (1988).

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Come-All-You-Coal-Miners/release/4148892

&

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Theyll-Never-Keep-Us-Down-Womens-Coal-Mining-Songs/release/7180881

Not sure this one is about mining precisely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0IHk7vYPX4

... and nor's this one but it's a proper classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAY7JmBpTa0

There are a lot of folk songs about mining disasters!

Falco Mutter, Der Mann Mit Dem Koks Ist Da

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7bHdcq87o

Defintely about coal, but "roots music" this is not.

The Albion Band, "The Gresford Disaster"

Down there in the dark they are lying
They died for nine shillings a day;
They have worked out their shift and now they must lie
In the darkness until Judgement Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zBpks3YeuQ

.. welling up just thinking about that song.

Kevin Coyne, "The Miner's Song"

Oh I'm gonna do some fighting
Oh I'll fight the lot of yer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUxt1-T4LzM

Dwight Yoakam & Ralph Stanley Miner's Prayer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIZAnEJRV3M

Leon Rosselson, "Palaces of Gold". A song about Aberfan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpWluQXKTZk

Dick Gaughan, "Auchengeich Disaster"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehhtsv7_Hog

John Prine - Paradise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SKCWXoryU

Wikipedia Prog dept.

Big Big Train - A Boy In Darkness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xQmshE99Ic

Johnny Cash - The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jF8QgyW3VA

Many people have done this song. In fact I performed at above a pub one day at an ILX talent show!

Cumberland Blues - Grateful Dead

This is going to be a pretty depressing playlist tbh.

Something that “L&N” captures really well is this unresolvable tension between coalmining being a terrible job and destructive of everything we hold dear, and also being a vital paycheck and the anchor to a way of life.

“I never thought I’d learn to love the coal dust / Never thought I’d pray to hear the tipples roar”

The Bee Gees, "New York Mining Disaster 1941"

Max Boyce, "Duw It's Hard". My Welsh dad was heavily into this guy but I never really got him, except for this.

But I can't forget the times we had
The laughing midst the fear
'Cause everytime I cough I get
A mining souvenir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7itxshX1i4o

lol

Florence Reece - Which Side Are You On

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uPVMOP1ogc

Florence lived in Knoxville with her husband Sam (whose attempted murder was the inspiration for her writing the song). My mom idolized her and I got to meet her several times, and I even met Sam a couple of times when I was very little.

Nancy & Lee - "Arkansas Coal (Suite)"

Can’t find a good YouTube for it, but here’s Pete Seeger and The Weavers doing a few minutes of “Miner’s Life”. This has the immortal line: “Keep your hand upon the dollar / and your eye upon the scale” i.e. don’t let the foreman cheat you when it comes time to weigh your load.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQuytT2tMQ

My favorite bit of trivia regarding Cumberland Blues: Robert Hunter, friend of the band and writer of the song's lyrics, was in the audience at a show shortly after the song's release and was tickled to hear someone behind him loudly complaining about how unfair it was that a contemporary rock band had dug up and recorded this obscure old Appalachian tune to exploit commercially on Workingman's Dead with no compensation for the poor coal miner who wrote it. He knew he'd nailed the lyrics when he heard that.

The Police - Canary in a Coal Mine

hmmm

'Timothy' by the Buoys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXn0uIF60iU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons

Tracer Hand going back to his Southern roots here.

Tracer, what does L&N stand for?

Louisville & Nashville!

There's a beautiful L&N station in downtown Knoxville that's been restored a few times over the years. It's had a succession of restaurants as tenants but nothing has ever worked out permanently as far as I know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%26N_Station_(Knoxville)

Ah, of course that link does't work because of the closing parenthesis. You'll need to copy and paste.

Huh I can see from that Wikipedia article that it's now a high school! I had no idea. In any case... the L&N don't stop there anymore.

Steeleye Span, "The Blackleg Miner"

So join the union while you may
Don't wait till your dying day
Or that may not be far away
You dirty blackleg miner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3f9YpKH1AM

have always loved this one: jimmy dean, "big bad john"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnnHprUGKF0

ok, here's the og version with the better ending. "at the bottom of this mine lies one helluva man"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN3exiuyQJc

Can't find the original recording of this, but Peggy Seeger's "Springhill Mining Disaster":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp6a-r0keWE

U2 used to cover this in the mid-'80s. I saw them play it in Chicago, the week (possibly the day) they appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The crowd went nuts for everything during the show, and kept shouting over Bono's introduction of this song, which he said he wished he'd heard on the radio during the UK miners strike. After Bono sang the first verse of this, he said, "Shut up for a second, willya? It's not the Beatles up here, it's just U2."

Pulp: "The Last Day of The Miner's Strike"

Uncle Tupelo - Coalminers

Dylan - North Country Blues (though it's about iron mining)

Wow! These are great! He will love this playlist.

I especially like Dick Gaughan, it will be nice to play him some English / Irish / Scottish stuff, I think he'd like it, but he'd like more modern stuff like "Pulp", too!

Forgot about the Nancy & Lee, he would like that.

He already knows about John Prine.

Oh... "Timothy" is that novelty song by Rupert Holmes that alludes to cannibalism in the coal mine!

I especially like Dick Gaughan, it will be nice to play him some English / Irish / Scottish stuff,

I don't there's ever been any coal mining in Ireland?

Technically not coal, but you definitely need this miners anthem on the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI0x0KYChq4

Tennessee ernie ford - 16 tons

Uncle Bill's 'Between the Wars'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjUA3RU4B8E

So many good things on here. I came to post the Gresford Mining Disaster which is an extraordinary track.

The Mekons, "Trimdon Grange Explosion"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1xnBeG4XQ

Oh... "Timothy" is that novelty song by Rupert Holmes that alludes to cannibalism in the coal mine!