Labour & Pop Culture: Big Branch

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Big Branch” by Gangstagrass. This song explores how the whip of hunger drives workers’ to do things they wouldn’t normally do. It also juxtaposes individual and corporate criminality. I don't really care for rap, but this is worth a listen.

The singer raps about her coal-mining father and grandfather and the cost mining exacted on their lives. Her grandfather died (I suspect from an occupational disease) and her father was blacklisted for organizing workers.

During this time I got to know my dad
He would tell me stories 'bout the job he ha
It’s the culture round here and it makes people proud
Basically it’s pretty much the only job around

He tells her of the hazards of the job and how workers act against their own interests because they have no other way to learn a living. She resolved never to mine and instead goes into the meth industry, eventually losing her hand in a workplace explosion and gets jailed. While in jail she hears another explosion—this time from the coal mine.

Who's the outlaw? Quick on the draw?
Cast the first stone if you don't have a flaw.
Who fills the jails? Who lives above the law?
White collar, Black Market, Who's Rich, Who's Poor?

Who's the outlaw? Quick on the draw?
Cast the first stone if you don't have a flaw.
Who fills the jails? Who lives above the law?
White collar, Black Market, Who's Rich, Who's Poor?

Never knew my father ‘cos he worked all day
Left the house sundown that’s the coal miner’s way
The pay was real good he made 70k
But it wasn’t worth all the things he had to give away
His father did the same thing same time
Took everything he had until it took his life
When I lost my grandfather I was seven years old
Decided then and there I would never mine coal.
That plus the dust on everything in our home
A quarter inch thick on every single thing we owned
But that was nothing compared to what we couldn’t see
Toxic particles in the air we had to breathe.
He tried so hard to be relocated
His boss wouldn’t do it and my mom was devastated
He started a petition and everyone enlisted
Til he lost his job and he got blacklisted

CHORUS
Who's the outlaw? Quick on the draw?
Cast the first stone if you don't have a flaw.
Who fills the jails? Who lives above the law?
White collar, Black Market, Who's Rich, Who's Poor?

CHORUS

During this time I got to know my dad
He would tell me stories 'bout the job he had
It’s the culture round here and it makes people proud
Basically it’s pretty much the only job around
He told me how they took apart the ventilation system
Sent two men instead of one to speed up the production
They knew it wasn’t safe but they followed the instruction
One hundred feet of coal a day that was their only function
No matter if it took twelve hours or sixteen
They took short cuts to keep the operation lean
Skipping safety measures made it risky for the team
But they all knew the deal so nobody intervened
When inspectors came watch dogs would let them know
And out the dust comes so the level will read low
The more violation the more production grows
Someone dies from black lung every time the wind blows

CHORUS
CHORUS

Then it came time for me to go out on my own
A tear in my mama's eye "child you've grown"
Can't recall a time when I felt so alone
As when I headed straight into the danger zone
Always good at science, always loved chemistry
But here in West Virginia there's not a lot of options, see?
My buddy had a meth lab he ran underground
Out of a mobile home on the outskirts of town
Business was picking up and he could use my help
Run the red, white ‘n blue, process for myself
Iodine, ephedrine, red phosphorus
Highly combustible and high risk
BAM, I lost my hand, blew up the lab
And from the jail cell I would hear the same blast
But this came from the big branch coal mine
I just found out that it killed twenty-five

CHORUS
CHORUS

-- Bob Barnetson