The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19719   Message #1925285
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
02-Jan-07 - 09:28 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Casey Jones
Subject: Lyr Add: CASEY JONES, MINER
Stewie posted three verses a few years back. I think all of it should be here.

CASEY JONES, MINER

1.
Come all you muckers and gather here,
A story I'll tell you of a miner dear,
Casey Jones was the miner's name,
On a Burley machine he won his fame.
2.
The story I am about to tell
Hapened at a mine called the Liberty Bell,
They went into the crosscut and mucked her out,
And Casey said, "We'd better step about."
3.
Carey Jones was a ten-day miner,
Casey Jones was a ten-day man,
Casey Jones took a chance too many,
And now he's mining in the promised land.
4.
Casey said, "We'd better dig in,
Before that damned old shift boss comes in;
If he finds out we've been taking five,"
He'll send us to the office to get our time."
5.
They went into the crosscut, put up the bar,
Placed the machine up on the arm,
Put in a starting drill with its bit toward the ground,
Turned on the air and she began to pound.
6.
Casey said, "If I haven't lied,
There is a missed hole on that right-hand side."
His partner said, "Oh gracious me!
If it ever went off where would we be."
7.
They went into the crosscut to drill some more,
The powder exploded with a hell of a roar,
It scortched poor Casey just as flar as a pan,
And now he's mining in the promised land.
8.
Carey said just before he died,
"There's one more machine I would like to have tried."
His partner said, "What can it be?"
An Ingersoll jackhammer, don't you see."
9.
Casey Jones was a ten-day miner,
Casey Jones was a ten-day man,
Casey Jones took a chance too many,
And now he's mining in the promised land.

Heard by Bill Gilbert in 1918 at Chicago Park, near Colfax, CA when he was President of the Western Federation of Miners.
Two 'unprintable stanzas about the Empire mine, Grass Valley, and Mrs, Jones going to Colfax and Reno "to be free once more" of a mucker she married after the death of Casey.

ten-day miner- a tramp miner, who works just long enough to make a stake so that he may hit the road again.
taking five- knocking off work long enough to smoke a cigarette, etc.
missed hole- a hole in a ound of dynamite charges which has not exploded because of a faulty fuse or other reason.

First printed in "Southern Folklore Quart., VI, 2, June 1942. Taken here from Duncan Emrich, "Songs of the Western Miners," Calif. Folklore Quart., 1942, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 213-232.
There were other versions at other mining camps.