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The Ballad of Springhill

from Bleaching Bones by Landless

/

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited vinyl edition of Bleaching Bones, shipped with CD sized booklet and download code.
    Track listing:
    1. The Trees They Grow Tall
    2. Doomsday
    3. The Well Below The Valley
    4. Lassie Lie Near Me
    5. Ca' The Yowes
    6. The Ballad of Springhill
    7. All Around The Loney-O
    8. The Female Convict
    9. Buried In Kilkenny
    10. Via Extasia
    11. Caoin II

    Includes unlimited streaming of Bleaching Bones via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €17 EUR or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €1.50 EUR  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD version of Bleaching Bones.
    Track listing:
    1. The Trees They Grow Tall
    2. Doomsday
    3. The Well Below The Valley
    4. Lassie Lie Near Me
    5. Ca' The Yowes
    6. The Ballad of Springhill
    7. All Around The Loney-O
    8. The Female Convict
    9. Buried In Kilkenny
    10. Via Extasia
    11. Caoin

    Includes unlimited streaming of Bleaching Bones via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €11 EUR or more 

     

lyrics

Lyrics/Arr by Peggy Seeger, 1960

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia,
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine;
There’s blood on the coal and the miners lie
In roads that never saw sun nor sky,
Roads that never saw sun nor sky.

In the town of Springhill, you don’t sleep easy,
Often the earth will tremble and roll;
When the earth is restless, miners die,
Bone and blood is the price of coal,
Bone and blood is the price of coal.

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia,
Late in the year of fifty-eight,
The day still comes and the sun still shines
But it’s dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine,
Dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine.

Down at the coal face, miners working,
Rattle of the belts and the cutter’s blade;
Then a rumble of rock and the walls close round
Living and the dead men two miles down,
Living and the dead men two miles down.

Twelve men lay two miles from the pit shaft,
Twelve men lay in the dark and sang;
Long hot days in the miner’s tomb,
It was three foot high by a hundred long,
Three foot high by a hundred long.

Three days passed and the lamps gave out and
Caleb Rushton he up and said,
“There’s no more water nor light nor bread,
So we’ll live on songs and hope instead,
Live on songs and hope instead.”

Listen for the shouts of the bare-face miners,
Listen through the rubble for the rescue team;
Six hundred feet of coal and slag,
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam,
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam.

Eight days passed and some were rescued,
Leaving the dead to lie alone;
Through all their lives they dug a grave,
Two miles of earth for a marking stone,
Two miles of earth for a marking stone.

credits

from Bleaching Bones, released March 16, 2018

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Humble Serpent is a new Irish record label set up at the worst possible time in the history of people setting up record labels. We're rather proud of that

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