My daddy worked the Lincoln mine
'til he was 62.
With both his lungs as black as night
his working days were through.
But he never cursed a single hour
he spent down in the hole.
To his dying day he'd always say
this town was built on coal.
And the day that I became a man
I went down underground.
The rake had stopped and I jumped off
and took one look around.
And I saw the ghosts of miners past
in every rock and seam,
and my future there before me
within my lantern's beam.
We are brothers, brothers in darkness
and we never see the sun
The stars wait to greet us when the day's work is done
We go down down down under land and sea
where the blackness stops time,
with pickaxe and shovel and these brothers of mine.
And soon the days turned into years
for the work was in my blood
My luck held fast as I survived
3 cave-ins and a flood
But for some men this might be the day
When the reaper rolls his dice
It's once below and once above
you'll end up buried twice
One day we dug the hole so deep
that we woke the devil up
Instead of being angry
to us he raised his cup
He said you must be mighty men
to have come so far below
And I see you've brought the Lord here with you
So I'll have to let you go
We are brothers, brothers in darkness
and we never see the sun
The stars wait to greet us when the day's work is done
We go down down down under land and sea
where the blackness stops time,
with pickaxe and shovel and these brothers of mine.
And now the mines are locked up tight.
We've faced our early end:
some 3-piece suit took all our jobs with one stroke of his pen.
And lest the young ones might forget
we'll raise our voice in song.
Though we'll never see the deeps again
the miner's heart lives on.