Lyrics Dark as a Dungeon - Guy Clark

This is a song by Merle Travis, his brother
It's a story I heard one time
They got offered a record deal to do an album of coal mining songs
And uh, they had two weeks

So during those two weeks they wrote this song
Which is called, "Dark as a Dungeon"
They wrote a song called, "Nine Pound Hammer"
They wrote a song called, "Sixteen Times"
Damn, hard two weeks

Come all young fellers
So young and so fine
Seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine
It'll form as a habit
Seep in your soul
'Til the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal

It's dark as a dungeon
Damp as a dew
Danger is double
And the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls
The sun never shines
Dark as a dungeon
Way down in the mine

Well it's the man that I've seen in my day
He lived just to labor his whole life away
Like the fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mind

It's dark as a dungeon
Damp as a dew
Danger is double
And the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls
The sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon
Way down in the mine

Russell

Hear damn Douglas

That's what he said
He said, "I hope when I die and the ages do roll
My body will blacken
And turn into coal
And I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miner that's digging my bones"

'Cause it is dark as a dungeon
Damp as a dew
Danger is double
And the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls
The sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

Where the rain never falls
And the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

Yes sir, a real bobtail monkey