Being very tired, and disappointed by Bitter's (hopefully short) hiatus from blogging. Also pissed by a burst of comment spam.
The only uside to that spam was that I had to close down the comments here, and I realized that (1) I hadn't updated for the final answers given (since corrected) and (2) I really love that song "Coal Tattoo", more now since I've learned that a number of ancestors migrated from West Virginia to escape the coal mines.
So, having nothing else this evening, here are the lyrics as best I can recollect them from the Larry Groce [genuflect] album Junkfood Junkie. I'm sure some of you can identify with the title track.
Special note: if the lyrics don't quite match what you remember, Groce may have sung them slightly differently, and my memory ain't what it yoosterbe.
Travelin' down that cold highway, listen to my rubber tires whine
Goodbye to buckeye and white sycamore, I'm leavin' you behind
I've been a coal miner all of my life, laid down tracks in the hole
I've got a back like ironwood bent by the wind and blood veins as blue as the coal
Well some people say "That's a strange tattoo you got on the side of your head"
I say "That's a blueprint left by the coal, a little more and I'd been dead"
But I love the rumble and I love the roar, I love the cool of the slate
Now I'm travellin' down that old road just lookin' for a job, it's the travellin' and lookin' that I hate
I stood for the union, you know I walked in the line, I fought against the company
I stood for the UMW of A, now who's gonna stand for me?
'Cause I got no house and I got no job, I've just got a worried soul
And a blue tattoo on the side of my head that's left by that Number 9 coal
Well someday when I'm dead and gone to Heaven, the land of my dreams
I won't have to worry about losing my job to hard times and big machines
And I won't have to throw my money away on dues and hospital plans
I'll just dig coal where blue angels roam and sing with the angel band