Dark as a Dungeon

Its as dark as a dungeon way down in the mine...
SPOKEN: I never will forget one time when
I was on a little visit down home in
Ebenezer,
Kentucky.
I was a-talkin to an old man that had known me ever since the day
I was born, and an old friend of the family.
He says, 'Son, you dont know how lucky you are to have a nice job like youve got and dont have to dig out a livin from under these old hills and hollers like me and your pappy used to.'
When I asked him why he never had left and tried some other kind of work , he says, 'Nawsir, you just wont do that. If ever you get this old coal dust in your blood, youre just gonna be a plain old coal miner as long as you live.'
He went on to say, 'Its a habit (CHUCKLE) sorta like chewin tobaccer.'
Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
CHORUS: Its dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
Its dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
Its a-many a man
I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his **** and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
I hope when
Im gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then Ill look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin my bones.
ADDITIONAL
STANZA RAR
ELY PERFOR
MED BY MER
LE TRAVIS:
The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day,
Is the same to the miner who labors away.
Where the demons of death often come by surprise,
One fall of the slate and youre buried alive.