acoustic
folk
social commentary
political satire
western massachusetts
oil
coal
climate change
fracking
incineration
music for social change
nuclear energy
Story behind the song
The National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum is merely one example of how corporate sponsorship dictates the content (what is presented and censored) in museums. The same can be said for news media, textbooks in schools, etc. (see James Loewen, Lies Across America)
Lyrics
The Mining Hall of Fame and Museum
In Leadville, CO where
Over 90% of the inductees
Never sniffed coal miners' air
Over 1/2 of them millionaires,
Rakin in corporate shares,
Put the miners in the mining museum.
Put truth in history there.
Italien anarchists took out the granite.
In Wisconsin, the Cornish dug lead.
Chinese Americans panned for the gold &
Many of them ended up dead.
Finnish socialists took out the copper &
Women the coal did haul,
Bit white Anglo Saxon protestant men
Are the plaques that hang on the wall.
Put the miners in the miners' museum.
Put history the way it should be
Tell of the cancers, not corporate financiers,
Give miners' stories to me.
Where is Joe Hill? Where is Big Bill?
No Columbine organizers
Joe they would kill, give Bill 20 to chill,
& no one is the wiser.
Where are 1000s of tons of uranium waste
& radioactive water?
Or 100s of millions of gallons of cyanide
Flowing in the Alamosa?
You can kill miners 1 by 1
With black lung, silicosis,and gas.
You can kill 'em in mining explosions,
Take out dozens en masse.
You can call out the Guard & the state police
In the name of Rockefeller.
Shoot 'em in camps, on line, or asleep,
Any miner dweller.
Put the miners in the miners' museum.
Put history the way it should be
Tell of the cancers, not corporate financiers,
Give miners' stories to me.
In the midst of a superfund cleanup site,
Leadville's story will scare.
Put the miners in the mining museum.