miners

Miners Lullaby

I was up in Park City, a silver mining camp above Salt Lake. It died as a city when the price of silver fell, and most of the silver miners went up to Alaska which was booming at that time. It had been a bustling city with a big Chinatown and all. A lot of the people, when it came time to leave, simply locked their stores and houses, left a relative with a piece of paper or something, and went to Alaska. It's only since the developers came in and opened it as a ski resort that the stores and houses have been opened.

When I was working with the historical society, we opened an old drug store and candy shop that had been closed since 1903. There was stock on the shelves, candy in the jars, all covered with dust and cobwebs, but everything was there. We fought and fought to keep that just the way it was, but the relatives sold it off piecemeal to antique dealers.

Before the area redeveloped, I'd go up to Park City because it was a half?dead town and everything was kind of loose and easy. The Moustache Bar was still going and Pop Jinks was still running his hamburger and ice cream parlor. I'd go up the canyon to where the mines were and look all around in the garbage dumps. You learn a lot scrounging around in garbage dumps. I would find old Chinese spice boxes and things like that.

I found one little tin box with a belt clip, and I didn't know what it was. I asked around; nobody could tell me. The old bartender in the Moustache Bar said, "I don't know. Maybe it was used for holding snipes. " A lot of bums carry a snipe can, an old Prince Albert can with cigarette and cigar butts.

It was somebody who was new to the community who said, "I know what that is. That's a morphine tin. " Now led read a lot about mining, talked to a lot of miners, but I'd never heard of such a thing. He said, "Of course you wouldn't, because most of the miners up here are Catholic. They've come from another country, or their folks came from another country.

"Well, what does that mean?"

"You think about it. A guy goes underground in the mines, and there's a rock fall or an explosion, and he's trapped way down there. He's running out of air, water's rising, he's tapping on the rocks and he can't hear anything. He could suffocate or drown. He takes that morphine tin off his belt, takes that morphine, and just goes to sleep.

"But of course suicide is a mortal sin in the Catholic church, and he's not going to talk about it. His immediate family is going to know about it. In fact, they're probably just as content knowing he's got that morphine tin with him. Takes a tremendous burden off a mother's mind or off a wife's mind."

I think that if I was to sing this song for miners they would tell me to shut up and mind my own business. I don't know why I felt like I needed to write a song about that. I think that what I really want to say is that it's a damn shame that we have the kind of industrial system which will sometimes compel a working man to take his own life for the sake of somebody else's greed. And I think this story puts it in such unmistakable terms that nobody can forget it once they've heard it.

My husband and I are Roman in faith,
Though we have a secret to keep;
If ever his life is taken away,
Then gentle and long will he sleep.
Oh, some men pass with family around,
And linens and blankets so clean;
But there's seldom a miner goes under the ground
Without his tin of morphine.

But now here's a word, an explosion is heard;
The miners are trapped far below;
If any survive down there alive,
I'm certain we never will know;
Although our families have vainly appealed,
No rescue attempt can be seen;
Our hope for loved ones in the dark earth sealed,
Now lies in a tin of morphine.

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