The Coal Tattoo

[Bake]

Great song, not sure who wrote it ...

Coal Tattoo

Travelin' down this coal-town road
Listen to my rubber tires whine
Goodbye to buckeye and white sycamore
I'm leavin' you behind

Well I been a coal miner all my life
Layin' down track in the hole
Got a back like an ironwood bent by the wind
Blood veins as blue as the coal

Somebody said that's a strange tattoo
There on the side of your head
I said that's the mark of the Number Nine coal
A little more and I'd be dead

Well I love the rumble and I love the dark
And I love the cool of the slate
But it's goin' down a new road lookin' for a job,
Travelin' and lookin' I hate

I worked for the union, I walked on the line
I stood against the company
I stood for the U. M. W. of A.
Now who's gonna stand for me?

Well I got no house and I got no job
Just got a worried soul,
And a blue tattoo on the side of my head
Left by the Number Nine coal.

Someday, when I die and go
To heaven the land of my dreams
I ain't gonna worry 'bout losin' my job
To bad times and big machines

Well I ain't gonna pay all my money away
To dues and hospital plans
Gonna pick coal 'til the blue heavens roll
And sing with the angel band.


For all the miners lost at Sago.

Bake