Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp: Listen & Lyrics

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Local 6167 was the UMWA local up in Jewell Ridge. When I lived up on Smith Ridge with MawMaw there wasn't much work for miners and there would be strikes at the mines that were still operating. Lots of folks were waiting on Black Lung pay -- compensation for the silicosis that had damaged their lungs while working in the mines. I wrote a lot of local places into this song. One, in particular, is the Friendly Chapel Church where my Uncle Jerry is the pastor and which sits about 30 feet from my MawMaw's house up on Smith Ridge. She still quilts there with the ladies on Mondays. The mechanization of mining was a boon to the coal industry, but meant the that day of traditional coal mining was largely over. And though the old way was flawed and dangerous, it did provide a way of life for entire communities who with its disappearance found themselves in an unemployment crisis.

I’ll go down to Coaldan and lay on the tracks
and listen to the rails that stopped talking back.
Or I’ll go down to Richlands to a Blue Tornados game
and look for the old-timer and ask them their names.

Did you know Hankins in the UMWA.
Were you there when Meadows got his black lung pay.

There used to be a train that hauled this coal away
back when John L. Lewis paved the miner’s way.
But now there’s just a strike shack fallen to disrepair
and if you go down to the coalfields there ain’t no miners there.

I’ll go across to Smith Ridge to the Friendly Chapel Church
and ask the good women to help me keep my shirt.
They’re bound to have some dinner there or a pack of cigarettes.
I’ll take their religion if that’s all I can get.

We all know Jesus is for the UMWA
and it don’t mean nothing what the politicians say.

There used to be a train that hauled this coal away
back when John L. Lewis paved the miner’s way.
But now there’s just a strike shack fallen to disrepair
and if you go down to the coalfields there ain’t no miners there.

John Lewis called the mines a blood and bones machine
that grinds up the miner for the American Dream.
Now the Company’s got Machine’s that’ll mine for the coal
and they don’t need us miners to go down in that hole.

God bless Jewell Ridge and the UMWA
and God bless the miner who has seen his day.

There used to be a train that hauled this coal away
back when John L. Lewis paved the miner’s way.
But now there’s just a strike shack fallen to disrepair
and if you go down to the coalfields there ain’t no miners there.

Yeah, if you go down to the coalfields there’s nary a miner there.