Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces (Vera Aspey)

Subject: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: GUEST,Singerdave
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 08:01 AM

Looking for the lyrics for the above song wrote by Vera Aspey, can anyone help please.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 08:39 AM

Coal Black Faces Written by Gary & Vera Aspey
From Vera Aspey ?– The Blackbird Topic Records ?– 12TS356 1977

Recording here; https://www.shazam.com/track/149936343/coal-black-faces

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 09:12 AM

It's strange Singerdave, it appears that several online sources of the song have been removed from circulation, and access is forbidden.
This is silly, as the 'black faces' refer to coal miners after they come home from the pit. Do you suppose the title makes people think it's a racist song???
My grandfather and all my uncles (Geordies) worked down the pit, and all naturally had black faces when they arrived home, and huddled round the coal fire. My granny washed my grandpa's back while he sat in his tin bath!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 10:02 AM

Access may be denied because the song is copyrighted and the copyright owners have the right to keep it to themselves unless the user pays.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 10:12 AM

Ah I see leeneia. Only, most of the couple's other songs can be listened to on Youtube.

Doesn't the tune have a strange 'kink' in it? Very hard to sing it at first. It took me three listenings to get it!

Subject: Lyr Add: COAL BLACK FACES (Very Aspey)
From: GUEST,Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 06:17 PM

COAL BLACK FACES

Clean and bright they make their way
And hurry below to earn their pay
And surface at the end of day
Those men with the coal black faces

  Chorus:
  Coal black faces
  The lips are red
  White eyes glaring from their heads
  A-going home to hard-earned* beds
  Those men with the coal black faces

Old tin bath before the fire
Rest and warmth is their desire
To wash away the earth's black mire
Those men with the coal black faces
 ?Chorus

Dust below and dust outside
But the dust they breathe the body hides
In and out at the flowing tide
Go the men with the coal black faces Chorus
 ?Chorus

Light and warmth our comfort be
In the air the birds fly free
Go down below and you will see
Those men with the coal black faces
 ?Chorus
  A-going home to hard-earned* beds
  Those men with the coal black faces

* possible hardened it's not quite clear enough to decide


Source: Gary and Vera Aspey, album, The Blackbird

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Feb 18 - 08:42 PM

That puts me in mind of the lyric by Jean Ritchie,
"The L & M Don't Stop Here Anymore."

Remember when she describes her father working in the coal mines;
then the mines close, and her father still leaves the house every day
but when he comes home
"his face is white as the February snow."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: GUEST,Singerdave
Date: 09 Feb 18 - 06:05 AM

Mick Pearce, thanks a lot and maybe those that have objected have never seen a coal miner after a days hard work. Still no more coal mines so a coal miner in this country no more.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Feb 18 - 06:10 AM

Maybe that's not a bad thing. My grandad (who survived the trenches in WW1) had the most terrible lung problems which eventually killed him. And there were tragic mine disasters in which men were buried underground and died.
The coal was won at the expense of men's health and lives.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces
From: cetmst
Date: 09 Feb 18 - 06:50 AM

The full verse from Jean Ritchie's "The L and N Don't Stop Here Any More":
I used to think my daddy was a black man
With scrip enough to buy the company store
But now he goes downtown with empty pockets
And his face is white as February snow.

Actually it was probably blue-gray from pneumoconiosis or black-lung disease

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal Black Faces (Vera Aspey)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 20 - 08:06 AM

Coal black faces
Their lips are red
White eyes glaring from their heads
A-going home to hard-earned* beds
Those men with the coal black faces

*hard-earned is right.
Those are the words Vera used to sing anyway; I lived near them, knew them for a few years. Most of the songs Vera (and her husband Gary, mostly they work together) recorded were either traditional or written by other people but this is theirs. Funnily enough, "earned" is clear to me but maybe that's because I live here - local accent. Hadn't really noticed before how attenuated our "r" can be, also "Their" almost gone, barely a stop rather than "Th'". :-)