Loading Coal

My Pappy said when I was
Seventeen "you're six feet
Tall and your face is clean
And it don't look right for
A boy that old to not make
A living loading coal"

Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to
A dag-blamed mole never
Get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of loading
Coal, loading coal

Ain't never got acquainted
With a dollar bill and I don't
Ever reckon that I ever will
A dollar isn't made for a fellar
I'm told that scoops up a
Living loading coal

Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to
A dag-blamed mole never
Get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of loading
Coal, loading coal

I cussed everything in the
Mining camp from a shovel
And my pick to my carbide
Lamp but I know mighty well
Till I grow old i'll still be
A-cussing, but loading coal

Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to
A dag-blamed mole never
Get rich for to save my soul
In forty-eleven years of loading
Coal, loading coal

I know just as well as coal
Is black one of these days
The mines were strike and
I'll sit around starving till
I'm finally told there's a
Nickel more a ton for loading coal

Loading coal, loading coal
I'm a double first cousin to a
Dag-blamed mole never get rich
For to save my soul in forty
Eleven years of loading coal
Loading coal