The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1714   Message #162137
Posted By: Easy Rider
13-Jan-00 - 09:22 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Springhill Disaster/Ballad of Springhill
Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote the song Springhill Desaster?
The Cumberland mine disaster happened in Springhill, Nova Scotia, in 1958. I remember seeing it on TV and in headlines in the newspaper. It went on for days, and a number of men were lost.

In the Summer of 1967, I was leading a Youth Hostel bicycle group through Nova Scotia. I played and sang the MacCall/Seeger version of the song to a group of local kids I met along the way, but none of them had ever heard of the incident!

The song has a beautiful, haunting melody, but I've long forgotten it. Does anybody have Tab/Music and lyrics for it, hopefully in fingerstyle guitar?

""In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia, late in the year of '58...

The rain still falls and the sun still shines, But it's dark as a grave in the Cumberland mines. Dark as a grave in the Cumberland mines.""