Coal Town Road
Alister MacGillivray
Well you wake up in the black
Down the coal town road
And you hike along the track
Where the coal trains load
And you make the ponies pull
Till they almost break their backs
And they'll never see again
Down the coal town road.
We hear the whistle call
And we take our towels and all
In the cages then we drop
Till there's nowhere else to fall
And we leave the world behind etc.
We never see the sun
At a penny for the ton
When the shift comes up on top
We're so thankful to be done
We head home to sleep and dream about etc.
There's miners' little sons
Playing with their cowboy guns
allacky, hey John Dougall Al
But they'd better make the best
Of their childhood while it runs
There's a pick and shovel waitin' etc.
If there's a God for us
All the miners he can bless
For we're sweatin' in the hole
Suckin' down that Devil's dust
Just to keep the fires blazin' etc.
Recorded by The Men of the Deeps (Cape Breton Group)