Kentucky Train Blockade

Soundcloud, Written in 2019 during the two month long sit in by laid off Kentucky coal miners to blockade a train full of coal. They would not allow the coal they had mined to be sold until they were paid the wages and retirement benefits owed to them. While some of the money has been paid, as of 2023 the miners are still in litigation with Blackjewel. 

Way up that piney mountain’s a place we cut a hole
To go into the rocks below to wrestle out the coal
And winding through the hollers that single line of rail
To take that dusty rock to the river and for sale

They thought they had the union beat out of the mines
But Kentucky miners know the way to hold a picket line
They had us move the mountain just to haul it all away
But that train stays in these hills ‘til every miner gets their pay

The operators steal our lives, they steal away our pay
They get a dollar in their hands and piss it all away
While yours and mine are left to scratch and make by on the dole-
They’ll throw away our families, but they want their dirty coal

The slopes are all stripped bare and the ridges broke and lost-
The ones who make the call have never had to pay the cost
We got mouths at homes to feed, and we got bills to pay
tear down the world tomorrow to keep living here today


These hills are getting lonelier, so many families gone
Since the dozer and the dragline had our people moving on
The day they close these pits they’d better make good with the ones
Who pulled their coal out of that hole to make their cities run

They thought they had the union down and beat out of the mines
But Kentucky miners know the way to hold a picket line
They had us move the mountains just to haul it all away
But that train stays in these hills ‘til every miner gets their pay ​