The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #37991   Message #532185
Posted By: Stewie
20-Aug-01 - 10:57 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: No. 26 Mine Disaster (A MacGillivray)
Subject: Lyr Add: No. 26 MINE DISASTER (A MacGillivray)
I came across this moving song which I would like to include in a presentation I am working on. Unfortunately, try as I might - with and without the use of headphones - I can't decipher the exact words at the beginning of the second line of the refrain. Can someone assist me these and point out any errors in my transcription? Thanks.

No 26 MINE DISASTER
(Allister MacGillivray)
One winter's morn in '79,
While the snow lay still without
Was four o'clock on a twenty-six wall
As the sixteen moved about
An explosion ripped and it rocked the pit
As smoke from the bottom began to spit
And the silence left would now admit
There are ten men gone

Refrain:
Ten men gone, no time to cry or bid farewell
But the ? they long may dwell
On her ten men gone

Into the depths in the frozen dawn
A clergyman was led
There in a fright his eyes were drawn
To the sight of the burned and dead
With courage bold he did unfold
The grace of God in the tunnels cold
Then the town was sadly told
There are ten men gone

Refrain

'Twas far from home the survivors waged
Brave battles for their lives
Help from many sources pledged
Brought comfort to their wives
But ere the churches hushed their hymns
In sad and solemn requiems
News from Halifax was grim
There are twelve men gone

Twelve men gone, no time …

Oh the colliers' life is a cruel life
As the times so lately tell
Peace to those who have gone before
To the rest, grow strong and well
May God be with you, every one,
The miner and the miner's son
The women and the babies yet to come
And those twelve men gone

Twelve men gone, no time …

Words and music by Allister MacGillvary. Source: Men of the Deeps 'Diamonds in the Rough: 25 Years with The Men of the Deeps' Own Label 02 50398.

--Stewie.