Name: Five-Dollar Coal
Channel: Fred Stanton
Description: Free MP3 download. Coal miners in Utah fight for a union.

Five-Dollar Coal

Fred Stanton

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Free download

Coal miners in Utah fight for a union.

Fred Stanton

Political/personal songs since the 1960s -- killer ballads, working-class anthems, political satire. Fred's twelve-string guitar can be anything from a blues ba

Fred Stanton’s songs (along with his lumberjack voice and jumbo 12-string guitar) embody the political folk-singing tradition. Fred has been an industrial worker (a welder of oilfield equipment; an electronic assembler; and a railroad electrician, hostler and brakeperson) as well as a political organizer and union activist. This life is at the heart of his songsmoving, personal ballads, rollicking satires, and working-class anthems. Fred has been singing in concerts, union rallies and political protests since the 1960s. His union songs celebrate the struggles of strikers at Peabody Coal, poultry processing workers in North Carolina, and strawberry pickers in California. And his "Singing Cars," a Bronx salute to car alarms, has been featured on NPR’s "Car Talk" show. Newest songs include “Five-Dollar Coal,” which is the story of miners in Utah fighting for a union.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #222

Peak in subgenre #43

Author

Fred Stanton

Rights

Uploaded

May 28, 2004

Track Files

MP3

MP3 4.8 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00

Story behind the song

Seventy-five coal miners, most of them from Mexico, are on strike at the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah. The song's title refers to the minimum wage, which is the starting wage in that mine.

Lyrics

From the sunshine of Sinaloa 
   to the dark of the Huntington mine,
It’s not just a trip ’cross the border, 
   it’s also a journey through time.
To the rule of the Kingston family, 
   shut up and do what you’re told.
And we all live like kings 
   on the five-dollar coal.

Chorus:	
On the five-dollar coal, 
   that is the price of your soul.
You may get sick and tired, 
   but you’ll never grow old
When you’re workin’ the five-dollar coal.

They give us a company union, 
   and machinery that’s truly antique.
And fortunes are made on the minimum wage 
   if you work eighty hours a week.
And we don’t have to worry ’bout health care, ’cause we never have time to catch cold,
And we all live like kings 
   on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

Work that was once done by hundreds 
   is now done by seventy-five,
The mine’s never been so productive, 
   and it’s only cost three miners’ lives.
You can work even when you are bleeding, 
   all it takes is some self-control,
And we all live like kings 
   on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

The Kingstons are known as the “Order,” 
   they’re a pious, polygamous clan.
The uncles, they marry the daughters, 
   and the daughters must stand by their man.
And their workers are part of the family, 
   we must do as the Bible foretold,
And we’ll all live like kings 
   on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)

Well, English is not our first language, 
   but we know how to read and to write,
And some of us studied the story 
   of a union that learned how to fight.
Now we’re enjoying the sunshine, 
   and the Kingstons are down in the hole,
And they all live like kings 
   on the five-dollar coal. (Chorus)