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

And 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
And 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 a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.

And 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
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

O midnight, or the morning, or the middle of the day
It's the same to the miner who labors away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and you're buried alive

And 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
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

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 a-diggin' 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
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

Copyright: Kanjian Music, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Writer(s): Merle Travis