Dark as a Dungeon

Re: Dark as a Dungeon: "DARK AS A DUNGEON Merle Travis"

Sometimes something bubbles up from the dark bottom of my mind. For the last day I've been haunted by a song I used to play on the banjo. And all I could remember of the lyrics was,

Where the sun never shines
It's as dark as a dungeon
way down in the mines...

So, it occurs to me to google the lyrics, in my frustration. And I couldn't find squat!

After revising my Link-Fu I finally find it:

DARK AS A DUNGEON
Merle Travis

Come all you young fellers, so young and so fine
And seek not your fortunes way down in the mine
It will form like a habit and seep in your soul
'Til the stream of your blood flows as black as the coal

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
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

There is many a man I have seen in my day
Who lived just to labor his whole life away
Like the fiend with his dope and the drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
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'm dead and the ages shall roll
That my body will blacken and turn into coal
I will look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miner a' diggin' my bones. . .


Thing is, I who Merle Travis is. But, I'd always thought that the song was a traditional folksong....you know, public domain and all...