Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)

Subject: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Oct 02 - 12:40 PM

MacColl's 'Champion miner' is on the 'Big Hewer' radio ballad CD, but not in the recent MacColl songbook. Before I start to transcribe it, perhaps someone has done that job already and can save me a lot of work?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Oct 02 - 01:27 PM

I didn't find it anywhere.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 09 Oct 02 - 01:36 PM

It was written by Hewin' MaCoal.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Oct 02 - 02:15 PM

Jim,

that took me a couple of seconds to decipher. I wonder what would you have made of the name if I had asked for a song from 'Singing the fishing' or 'The body blow' or...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 09 Oct 02 - 04:07 PM

Wofgang, it was too easy!

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BIG HEWER (MacColl, Seeger)
From: Hrothgar
Date: 10 Oct 02 - 04:45 AM

Wolfgang, I might be a bit confused. Is this the one? I know it as "The Big Hewer."

If so, it's in the "Ewan NacColl and Peggy Seeger Song Book" published by Oak Publications, New York, in 1963. Library of Congress catalog card number 63-14092 (no ISBN then).

THE BIG HEWER

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger
Copyright 1962 Stormking Music Inc
Written in 1961 for the Radio Ballad "The Big Hewer"

Out of the dirt and darkness I was born, Go down!
Out of the hard black coal face I was torn, Go down!
Kicked on the world and the earth split open,
Crawled through a crack where the rock was broken,
Burrowed a hole away in the coal, Go down!

In a cradle of coal in the darkness I was laid, Go down!
Down in the dirt and darkness I was raised, Go down!
Cut my teeth on a five foot timber,
Held up the roof with my little finger,
Started me time away in the mine, Go down!

On the day that I was born, I was six foot tall, Go down!
And the very next day I learned the way to haul, Go down!
On the third day worked at bord-and-pillar,
Worked on the fourth as a long-wall filler,
Getting me steam up, hewing the seam, Go down!

I'm the son of the son of the son of a collier's son, Go down!
Coal dust flows in the veins where the blood should run, Go down!
Five steel ribs and an iron backbone,
Teeth that can bite through rock and blackstone,
Working me time away in the mine, Go down!

Three hundred years I hewed at the coal by hand, Go down!
In the pits of Durham and east Northumberland, Go down!
Been gassed and burned and blown asunder,
Been buried more times than I can number,
Getting the coal away in the hole, Go down!

I've scrabbled and picked at the face where the roof was low, Go down!
Crawled in the seams where only a mole could go, Go down!
In the thin-cut seams I've ripped and redded
Where even the rats are born bow-legged,
Winning the coal, away in the hole, Go down!

I've worked on the Hutton, the Plessy, the Brockwell Seam, Go down!
The Bensham, the Busty, the Beaumont, the Marshall Green, Go down!
I've lain on me back in the old Three-Quarter,
Up to the chin in stinking water,
Hewing the coal, away in the hole, Go down!

In the northern pits I've sweated and earned my pay, Go down!
Toiled in the worked-out drift-mines night and day, Go down!
Where the anthracite is hard and shining
I've tried my hand at the hard rock mining
I dug me a hole away in the coal, Go down!

Out of the dirt and darkness I was born, Go down!
Out of the hard black coal face I was torn, Go down!
Kicked on the world and the earth split open,
Crawled through a crack where the rock was broken,
Burrowed a hole away in the coal, Go down!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Champion miner (MacColl)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Oct 02 - 05:21 AM

Thanks, Hrothgar, but no it isn't. I should have been a bit clearer. There is a radio ballad CD titled 'Big Hewer'. The opening song on that CD recurring with other verses on several tracks is also called 'The big hewer'. That is the song you have posted here.

'Champion miner' is another song on the CD.

Wolfgang