The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #1714   Message #3654066
Posted By: Joe Offer
25-Aug-14 - 10:28 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Springhill Disaster/Ballad of Springhill
Subject: DT Correction: The Ballad of Springhill
The version in the Digital Tradition is a pretty good transcription, but I found a few differences in The Peggy Seeger Songbook: Warts and All. Discrepancies are in italics.

THE BALLAD OF SPRINGHILL
(Peggy Seeger)

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia,
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine;
There's blood on the coal and the miners lie
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky,
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky.

In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy,
Often the earth will tremble and roll;
When the earth is restless, miners die,
Bone and blood is the price of coal,
Bone and blood is the price of coal.

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia,
Late in the year of fifty-eight,
Day still comes and the sun still shines
But it's dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine,
But it's dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine.

Down at the coal face, miners working,
Rattle of the belt and the cutter's blade;
Rumble of rock and the walls close round
The living and the dead men two miles down,
The living and the dead men two miles down.

Twelve men lay two miles from the pitshaft,
Twelve men lay in the dark and sang;
Long hot days in the miner's tomb,
It was three feet high and a hundred long,
It was three feet high and a hundred long.

Three days past and the lamps gave out
And Caleb Rushton he up and said,
"There's no more water nor light nor bread
So we'll live on songs and hope instead,"
"So we'll live on song and hope instead."


Listen for the shouts of the bareface miners,
Listen through the rubble for a rescue team;
Six hundred feet of coal and slag,
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam,
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam.

Eight days passed and some were rescued,
Leaving the dead to lie alone;
Through all their lives they dug a grave,
Two miles of earth for a marking stone,
Two miles of earth for a marking stone.

In the town of Springhill, you don't sleep easy
Often the earth will tremble and roll
When the earth is restless, miners die
Bone and blood is the price of coal

Words and music by Peggy Seeger, ©1963 by Stormking Music, Inc.
Alternate title: Springhill Mine (Mining) Disaster

Note that the book does not give Ewan MacColl any credit for authorship, despite what is stated in other sources. Peggy says that she knew no miners and no mining terms at the time, so Ewan supplied several lines for verse 4 when he came to visit.
The mine disaster at Springhill, Nova Scotia, happened on October 23, 1958. More than 150 miners were trapped, some of them a mile underground. Eighty-one miners were rescued, but 90 died.

Dm C Dm C
In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia
Dm G Dm
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine
G C Am
there's blood on the coal and the miners lie
Dm C Dm C A
In the roads that never saw sun nor sky (2x)


Copyright Sing Out
by Peggy Seeger, recorded by Ewan MacColl
@mining @death @work
filename[ SPRINGHI
TUNE FILE: SPRINGHI
CLICK TO PLAY
SOF

Recording by Tex Koenig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1s56iDOwGU