Text: Kathy Mattea. Coal. Dark as a Dungeon.

Come and listen you fellows so young and so fine
And seek not your fortunes in the dark dreary mines
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

It?s a many a man I have known in my day
Who lived just to labor his whole life away
Like the fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

Well, the midnight or the morning or the middle of day
Is the same to the miner digging away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and you?re buried alive

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

Well, I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll
My body will blacken and turn into coal
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miner digging my bones

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines
Oh, it?s dark as a dungeon way down in the mines