Dark as a Dungeon

Merle Travis

covered by Bob Dylan

Come all you young fellers so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune way down in the mine
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
'Til the blood of your veins runs as black as the coal.

  For it's dark as a dungeon and dank as a tomb
  Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
  Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
  It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

It's many a man I have known in my day
Who lived just to labour his whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine.

  For it's dark as a dungeon and dank as a tomb
  Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
  Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
  It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

I hope when I die and the ages shall roll
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
As I look from the door of my heavenly home
I will pity the miner a slave to my bones.