Friday Tunes: Coal, not dole

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is an a capella version of (I can’t believe I’m saying this) Chumbawamba’s “Coal not Dole.” (Yes, the same Chumbawamba that brought you the arena ear-bleeder, Tub-Thumpin’). The lyrics come from a poem of the same name about the 1984/85 coal strike in the UK.

The strike saw the eventual closure of many pits, devastating the surrounding communities. The bitterness, loss of self-respect and hopelessness wrought by such changes is nicely captured in this lyric:

Empty trucks once filled with coal
Lined up like men on the dole
Will they ever be used again?
Or left for scrap just like the men?

While “Coal not dole” was written about a specific event, it is also the tale of any one-industry town (e.g., lumber, fish, bitumen) where a business decision has a spectacular ripple-on effect for the workers.

They stand so proud, the wheels so still

A ghost-like figure on the hill
It seems so strange there is no sound
Now there are no men underground

What will become of this pit yard?
Where men once trampled faces hard
So tired and weary their shift's done
Never having seen the sun

There'll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They'll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt

Will it become a sacred ground?
Foreign tourists gazing round
Asking if men once worked here
Way beneath this pit-head gear

Empty trucks once filled with coal
Lined up like men on the dole
Will they ever be used again?
Or left for scrap just like the men?

There'll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They'll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt

-- Bob Barnetson