Help me out here...

A strange genre.  I invented the subsection myself after finding a 60's title about coal mining - Bill Neil and the Mark IV - A Coal Miners Prayer out of W.V.   Anyone know of any other good rocking songs about coal mining?

This is one amongst a few others I've found about the perils of the miners life.  These others are usually bluegrass/country but one a 70's psych tune by a unknown "garage" progrock band Pyramid - "Buffalo" on Studio 1, about a flash flood from a coal slurry reservoir killing many in 1972.

Want to compile an anti coal / mountain top removal list for political gain and health in the mountains of WV.

Now that is an amazingly good tough song you can smell the coal dust in the grooves, thank you Simon.

Simon Taylor said:

Check out "Peter Nelson & The Castaways-Down in The Mine" it's on Diggin Up Down Under comp....proper Aussie garage rocker

Or it's not exactly about mining "It's A Hard Life-The Seeds" kind of blue collar thing ?

Check out "Peter Nelson & The Castaways-Down in The Mine" it's on Diggin Up Down Under comp....proper Aussie garage rocker

Or it's not exactly about mining "It's A Hard Life-The Seeds" kind of blue collar thing ?

(Last line) My stomach was full as it could be , and no one ever got around to finding Timothy."
 
hicksville hogwash said:

"sell his soul for a piece of meat"...  lol.  I think the music does not match the lyrical content, I wanna chew the violin players arm off right now...  Thanks for polluting my life for 3 minutes John.

"sell his soul for a piece of meat"...  lol.  I think the music does not match the lyrical content, I wanna chew the violin players arm off right now...  Thanks for polluting my life for 3 minutes John.

 Who here knows "Timothy" by The Bouys ? Early 70 schmaltz - rock....Inoffensive , even written by Rupert Holmes ("The Pina Colada Song").....BUT , the almost unintelligible lyrics prove to be about three guys who get trapped in a mine. Their rescue is slow in coming. Their water supply is running short ,and there's no food. So , two of the Miners decide to eat Timothy , the more passive of the three. When the news of the lyrics got around , the song became a morbid fluke hit....Like Bloodrock's "D.O.A." , also a hit around that time....

"Timothy" was surely the first hit song about cannibalism , unless you want to count " Purple People Eater " , and you probably would'nt. The only band that I know of that covered "Timothy" was The Nervebreakers , who now own SXSW.

Well , I think that's the beauty part. If someone really interprets a song their own way , it can be as though you've never heard it , otherwise. Today , I heard a horrible Black Metal version of some 80's Journey or REO song , I forget which. The forced  irony , in this case , did'nt make it sound any better.
 
kopper said:

Ha! I'd totally forgotten that Devo song was a Lee Dorsey cover. Duh.

John Battles said:

The best - known non - Country song about coal mining would have to Lee Dorsey's original "Workin' In The Coal Mine".

Ha! I'd totally forgotten that Devo song was a Lee Dorsey cover. Duh.

John Battles said:

The best - known non - Country song about coal mining would have to Lee Dorsey's original "Workin' In The Coal Mine".

" IT'S HERE.....TO STAY. ROCK AND ROLL , COUNTRY AND WESTERN , IT DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE AS LONG AS IT'S GOOD MUSIC ! " Jerry Lee Lewis.

Good call on the Nancy   and Lee song. I had the  good fortune to meet them both. It goes without saying that Nancy is as down to earth as they get , but , Lee , too , was really pleasant , and he seemed blown away that he had so many fans. He'd been away so long , I think what's obvious to us had eluded him. But , he lived to see it , anyway.....
 
hicksville hogwash said:

Whoop.... another unforgettable forgotten thanks John, also there is Lee and Nancy's Arkansas Coal (suite) which I guess is country but I've always found Lee as psychedelic as hell.....  and a Chubby Checker song - Lazy Elsie Molly "used to carry coal on her back" but this is a little chirpy.

Man the big coal companies know how to throw cash at the silencing the anti coal rockers?!

Whoop.... another unforgettable forgotten thanks John, also there is Lee and Nancy's Arkansas Coal (suite) which I guess is country but I've always found Lee as psychedelic as hell.....  and a Chubby Checker song - Lazy Elsie Molly "used to carry coal on her back" but this is a little chirpy.

Man the big coal companies know how to throw cash at the silencing the anti coal rockers?!

"Bad Part of Town" by The Seeds starts off being about coal mining , but , has a happy ending.

The best - known non - Country song about coal mining would have to Lee Dorsey's original "Workin' In The Coal Mine".

"16 Tons" - how could I forget that one?  There's a Bo Diddley version of it on his album Bo Diddley is a Gun Slinger, but you probably knew that. 

I'm a West Virginia native (Parkersburg), so I'd like to hear the other tune you mentioned sometime.  Who's the artist?

The song - The Coal Miners Prayer is a stretch at being garage (i'll post it one day when I get the time to record it) but has a sweet 60's beat guitar sound and the vocals are pretty depressing but kind of country tinged "Oh lordy let me live another da-ay" and is cool for West Virginia mid 60's.  There is always "16 tons" of course, in infinite versions.

Yeah, this is a tough one.  There are plenty of folk/country-type songs about the topic, but I can't immediately think of any in the garage-punk vein.  You might see if there's any suitable cover versions of "Dark as a Dungeon", "Blackleg Miner", or "Nine Pound Hammer" out there (of course, the band Nine Pound Hammer is named for the song, but I don't know they ever covered it).  And the Dropkick Murphys did a cover of "Which Side are You On" a few years ago. 

Wow, good luck with that! I can't think of any specifically "garage" in nature... the only one that comes to mind is Devo's "Working in the Coalmine." Does that count?