You Won't Get Me Down In Your Mine

You won't get me down underground in your mine
Away from the trees and the flowers so fine
Down in the dark where the sun never shines
You won't get me down in your mines.

They dig for the coal for the most of their lives
Away from the children, away from their wives
To make others rich, in the heat and the dark
But who's going to care when they're too old to work?

There's many a miner who died underground
Died all alone when the roof tumbled down
Trapped in the dark underneath the great beams
And choked out his life in the gas-filled coal seams

I'll work in your factory, I'll work on your farm
Dig roads till the muscles stand out on me arm
I've fought in your army, I've been out to sea
But by Christ, you won't make a coal-miner of me.

The first verse is repeated as a chorus.

Transcribed from the 1973 Leader LP "Songs of a Changing World" (Jon Raven/Nic Jones/Tony Rose), sung unaccompanied by Jones, so you'll have to work out "chords" for yourself! Words and music were written by Colin Wilkie (publisher, Feldman), apparantly in response to a mining disaster that occurred in Germany in 1963.

Malcolm^^