Lyr Add: Englewood Mine

Subject: Lyr Add: Englewood Mine
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 08:53 PM

This is a miner song written by Isaac Hanna of Englewood, Illinois in 1895, per the liner notes of an old Peggy Seeger album. Peggy re-worked the lyrics a bit, and apparently chose a tune to go with it.

ENGLEWOOD MINE
As sung by Peggy Seeger.

The life of a miner, at best it is hard
We work for good money, get paid with a card
Our souls are famished, our bodies are sore
We're paid off with scrip from the company store
And it's hard, hard times in the Englewood Mine

The great gold monopolies are growing apace
They're making their millions by grinding our face
Coal owners keep grasping more and still more
They'll soon own the Earth through the company store
And it's hard, hard times in the Englewood Mine

They keep cutting our wages, time after time
We once had a dollar, we now have a dime
At the company store, the miner pays whole
And we get but a fraction for mining their coal
And it's hard, hard times in the Englewood Mine

The pirates and brigands who fought hand to hand
Who'd scuttle a ship or who'd pillage the land
They formed a collusion, they've all come on shore
They now ply their trade in the company store
And it's hard, hard times in the Englewood Mine

We signed then a contract, agreed between men
It holds us like slaves, it never holds them
And when they are finally culled from our shore
I hope they take with them their company store
And it's hard, hard times in the Englewood Mine

Source: Original text by Isaac Hanna, arranged and modified by Peggy Seeger, 1964. Recording on YouTube.