Working Girl Blues (14 page)

This is an anti-war song that I wrote during the Nixon years. At the time I had this scary thought, the fear that we might get into a nuclear war. I was also thinking about my nephew who was in the Korean War, who was in two major battles by the time he was eighteen or nineteen. He was so messed up when he returned he couldn't cope. So he took a gun and killed himself. I thought, what a waste of human life. Wars have far-reaching tentacles. We all know who really pulled that trigger. It seems as a civilized society we should practice being a little more civilized. Try a bit more diplomacy before we bomb each other into oblivion.

I saw a gray-haired mother crying softly in her door

As she gazed upon the pathway where he'd return no more

Oh Lord I'd love to hold my baby just once more

And Lord I hope I never live to see another war

Will Jesus wash the bloodstains from your hands?

Will he welcome you into that peaceful land?

Will he forgive the killings, the wars you have planned?

Will Jesus wash the bloodstains from your hands?

The bombs you've dropped, the guns you've shot, all in the name of peace

While the people begged for mercy, you gave them no relief

There's blood on your hands mister, you'll answer for one day

The tears you shed on that day won't wash your sins away

Now you say we can survive a nuclear war

That you would use limits, you'd only go so far

Well Hiroshima's horror, we'll never forget

For bloodthirsty warriors don't know when to quit

 

They'll Never Keep Us Down

I wrote “They'll Never Keep Us Down” in 1976 for the Academy Award—winning film
Harlan County, USA.
The film is about a strike and a bitter fight between the Brookside Mine and its parent, Duke Power Company, and the United Mine Workers. It was the first time I had been commissioned to write a song, and to challenge me further, the song was going to be the ending song for the entire film. So it had to be a very strong song. They wanted an “upbeat type” song to lift people's spirits to unify and strengthen the bond between working people everywhere. On top of that, they had a deadline and wanted the song as soon as possible, for they were going to enter the film in the New York Film Festival just a few weeks away. So to inspire me and spur me on, they brought me up to New York to see the film still in the editing stages. I took notes and wrote down some of the more memorable quotes, and I tried to use some of them in the song to give the workers more of a voice. As I wrote, I would get on the phone and read what I had to the producer or editor, and if they didn't think it was quite there, I would rewrite it. It was important to me to make sure that they got what they wanted, so I rewrote it until they were really happy with it. Then I put together a local band and went into the studio and cut it in a few hours and express-mailed it up to them in time to meet the deadline.

The producer, Barbara Kopple, invited me to come to the opening of the
film in New York and do some music. At the end of the film, while my song was still playing over the credits, they turned the sound down and I came out with my band and did the song live. It was very exciting, but a bit strange, for I'd never done anything like that before, and also I barely knew the song. It was the first time I had performed it before an audience, and this wasn't just any audience; it was the New York Film Festival, held in the fancy Alice Tully Hall—a far cry from the coal camps and hollers of West Virginia.

Barbara Kopple decided to have an opening in Harlan County for all the people she had made the film for, and I was invited to go and do some singing for them as well. The more I thought about singing my song for the very people I wrote it for, the more excited I got. I knew they would identify with me, for I was raised the same way, and my relatives had gone through the same struggles as they had. So we had plenty to share and talk about and they seemed to really enjoy the music. Some of us ended up spending the night with one of the women in the film. She cooked for us and we played music for her. It felt a lot more natural to me than Alice Tully Hall. The film went on to win an Academy Award, and because I had four songs on the soundtrack, I began to get a lot of calls to do more and more music—especially from grassroots organizations. Most would show the film, and I and a band of pickup musicians would do a set or two of songs that included my songs that were on the soundtrack. I especially did a bunch of benefits in 1978 and 1979 for the Stearns Strike in Stearns, Kentucky (a strike very much like the one in Harlan County). They were held in different areas, from New York City to Kentucky. And of course they were all great stages for those coal-mining songs, plus they raised awareness and some much-needed funds as the strike went into its second year. They also held a rally for the strikers and their families in Stearns to lift their spirits and show support. Some musician friends and I decided to go and play for them. The women all brought food and we brought the music. Afterwards, the musicians decided we would drive up the mountain to the picket line and play a few songs for them. We women didn't know how we'd be received, for up until then no women had been up there. But it turned out fine. Both male and female musicians played. Some local folks heard us and dropped by, and a few danced a little. I sang my song “They'll Never Keep Us Down,” and when I got to the part that says “We've been shot and we've been jailed, Lord it's a sin,” I happened to look down at the ground and lying next to my
feet was an empty cartridge. I looked at the little shed they'd built to get in when it rained or take shelter from whatever, and it was full of bullet holes. As we drove back down the mountain, the tired weary faces of the miners still haunted me. I kept thinking of them up there keeping their lonely vigil, being shot at, all because they're asking for a living wage and a union to protect them from the wealthy mine owners who had been ripping off hardworking people for years and thinking of those tired working-class heroes perched upon that mountain like sitting ducks. I couldn't help but think how the rest of us in society will benefit from their sacrifices, directly or indirectly, and what a small contribution most of us ever actually make to take a stand against the evils of injustice.

United we stand, divided we fall

For every dime they give us, a battle must be fought

So working people use your power, the key to liberty

Don't support the rich man's style of luxury

And there ain't no way they can ever keep us down, oh no,

There ain't no way they can ever keep us down

We won't be bought, we won't be sold, to be treated right, well that's our goal

And there ain't no way they can ever keep us down

Well we've been shot and we've been jailed, Lord it's a sin

Women and little children stood right by the men

But we got that union contract that keeps a worker free

And they'll never shoot that union out of me

They'll never shoot that union out of me oh no,

They'll never shoot that union out of me

Got a contract in our hands, signed by the blood of honest men

And they'll never shoot that union out of me

Well the power wheel is rolling, rolling right along

And the government helps keep it going, going strong

So working people get your help from your own kind

Your welfare ain't on that rich man's mind

Your welfare ain't on that rich man's mind, oh no,

Your welfare ain't on that rich man's mind

They want the power in their hands, just to keep down the worker and,

Your welfare ain't on that rich man's mind

They'll never, never, never keep us down, oh no,

They'll never, never, never keep us down

They can cheat, lie, frame or kill, but we'll stop that big wheel

And they'll never, never, never keep us down

 

Mannington Mine Disaster

This song is about a mine explosion at Consolidation Number 9 in Farmington, West Virginia, on November 20, 1968. Twenty-one miners got out, but seventy-eight were trapped in the mine. Their spouses waited at the mouth of the mine for ten days, but there was no hope of anyone else coming out. So the mine owners sealed the mine shut. The widows sadly returned home without their husbands. Ironically, while the mine was still exploding, the corrupt president of the UMW, Tony Boyle, went on television and said that consol 9 was one of the safest mines around. The truth was No. 9 was in one of the nation's gassiest seams of coal. Eight million cubic feet of methane seeped into No. 9 every twenty-four hours. And for five years prior to the explosion, all sixteen inspections done by the Bureau of Mines had cited consol 9 for insufficient rock dusting, which was, if done right, the best safety procedure around. A short time after the explosion I was part of a group of musicians who went down to Mannington to do a free concert for the victim's families, friends, and loved ones. I had just written “Mannington Mine Disaster” a short while before, and I was nervous about singing it there. There's a line that says “because of unsafe conditions your daddy died.” I looked out into the audience and there was one of the women sitting there with her young son—a moment of truth I won't forget soon! It was really gratifying to share my song with them!

We read in the paper and the radio tells

Us to raise our children to be miners as well

Tell them how safe the mines are today

And to be like daddy bring home a big pay

Chorus:

Now don't you believe them my boy that story's a lie

Remember the disaster at the Mannington mine

Where 78 miners were buried alive

Because of unsafe conditions your daddy died

They lure you with money it sure is a sight

When you may never live to see daylight

With your name among the big headlines

Like that awful disaster at the Mannington mine

There's a man in a big house way upon the hill

Far, far from the shack where the poor miner lives

He's got plenty of money Lord everything's fine

And he has forgotten the Mannington mine

Forgotten forgotten the Mannington mine

There is a grave way down in the Mannington mine

There is a grave way down in the Mannington mine

Oh what were their last thoughts what were their cries

As the flames overtook them in the Mannington mine

Repeat Chorus

How can God forgive you, you do know what you've done

You've killed my husband now you want my son

 

Coal Miner's Grave

In a hilltop cemetery overlooking Holly Grove in Paint Creek, West Virginia, is a hand-hewn granite grave marker that says, “Dedicated to the Memory of Francis F. Estep, for distinguished service and self-sacrifice in the cause of labor and advancement of the United Mine Workers of America.” For years the grave lay hidden in the weeds and underbrush, until a student from the West Virginia Institute of Technology stumbled upon it one day. Interviews with the Estep children revealed that they had not been able to find their father's marker, the reason being it had been put in the wrong place. The West Virginia Labor History Association sponsored a rededication and memorial ceremony, attended by Estep's children, on the Sunday before Labor Day, 1975. His son Clifford, who was in his mother's arms when his father was shot dead right in front of them, said it was the happiest day of his life to see his father get some appreciation for his sacrifice. A certain mystery still surrounds the monument. To this day no one from the UMWA seems to know who from the union placed it on the grave or when. All who might know are deceased.