This song about the deadly lure of the coal mines was written by Merle Travis, whose father and brothers were all coal miners in Kentucky where he grew up. Merle Travis himself remembers his oldest brother, Taylor, washing up in a galvanized tub in the middle of the floor after coming home from the mines: “When I’d watch him wash the black coal dust from a little rose tattoo on his arm I longed for the day when I could work in the mine and have a tattoo… He practically broke every rib in his body in a mine accident and it changed his whole life…” Travis first recorded the song in 1946. It was later popularised by Johnny Cash when he first sang it in his Folsom Prison concert. It has been covered by many other singers, including Dolly Parton, Harry Belafonte, Bob DeCormier, Pete Seeger, John Greenway, Cisco Houston, Jim Kweskin (1971), Rose Maddox (1976), The Weavers, The Wolfe Tones (1965), Glenn Yarbrough, Grandpa Jones and the Brown’s Ferry Four, Joan Baez (in 1964 and with Bob Dylan in their 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concerts) and Patrick Sky (1985). You can see a playlist of my mining songs here: www.youtube.com For lyrics and chords of my songs, see my website: www.raymondcrooke.com
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