Before the rooster crows and the sun’s awake
We’re pullin’ on boots by the stove’s dull ache
Coffee black as the mountain seam
Headin’ down where the daylight’s just a dream
Steel lunch pail and a miner’s light
Droppin’ down in the belly of night
Swingin’ that pick where the cold winds blew
Lord, this life ain’t for most of you
No, this life ain’t for you, son, it’s hard and it’s true
Breathin’ black dust ’til the sky turns blue
Swingin’ that steel in the mountain’s bone
In the dark where a man stands alone
Don’t you look down on the way we live
You don’t know what these hills can give
It takes a certain kind of soul to see it through
And this life ain’t for you
The earth groans low where the timbers creak
Every shift’s a gamble every man must meet
Rock and coal and the devil’s breath
Workin’ one step away from death
But there’s pride in the sweat on a miner’s brow
Feedin’ kinfolk here and now
These ridges raised us strong and true
But this life ain’t for most of you
No, this life ain’t for you, son, it’s hard and it’s cold
Breakin’ your back in the mountain’s hold
Swingin’ that pick where the daylight dies
With the dust in your lungs and fire in your eyes
Don’t you mock the dirt on our worn-out shoes
These hills pay a price most men refuse
Only mountain blood can make it through
And this life ain’t for you
We’ve carried caskets up them roads
For brothers buried in the coal below
Names carved deep in the county stone
Men who never made it home
Every year when the leaves turn red
We raise a jar for the miner dead
Their echoes roll through the holler blue
Remindin’ us what a man must do
So if you pass through these hills someday
And see the black dust on our face
Just remember what these mountains knew
They only keep the strong and true
No, this life ain’t for you, and that’s plain to see
It takes a mountain man to walk it with me
Swingin’ that steel where the dark runs deep
While the world above us lies asleep
But don’t you judge the way we choose
These hills are home we’ll never lose
Most men break before they make it through
Yeah, this life ain’t for you
So we’ll keep on diggin’ ’til the day we’re through
For the men we lost and the families too
In these West Virginia hills we knew
This life weren’t made for you
“This Life Ain’t For You” is track number 6 on the Thumper Barrel album, In A Coal Town.
Track: This Life Ain’t For You
Album: In A Coal Town
ISRC: QZNWY2695564
ASCAP: 935077945