The Knox Mine Disaster 1959
Tom Flannery

My name is Orloski and I’m employed by the Knox companynand I’ll lay my hands on the table for all to seenI come from miners whose ghosts they follow me downnand watch my back when the roof turns into the groundnnBig city has been calling says the coal is gonna end up deadnwife says if that don't happen then it’s gonna be me insteadnnBut they say it’s in the blood more than the lungs as the years go bynand every breath I take I catch a glimpse of my fathers eyennPort Griffith will remember the day back in 1959nwhen the fearsome Susquehanna smashed through the Knox company minenthe Pittston vein just blinded the men above the groundnand they just washed their hands when twelve men were never foundnnEighty seven men descended in the January chillnthey were scattered through the workings the cars they’d fill and fillnInspectors had drawn the red line 35 feet from the rivers ragenbut now it was down to 19 inches to force a miner to make a decent wagennFrank Hanley and his 11 were working near the shaftnand when he heard that rumble old Haney acted fastnhe called for the cage as the water lapped his armnand the cage rose above the river and his men spread the alarmnnbreak:nSusquehanna has a will of her ownnchills a coal man to the bonennFear can spread the word through a quiet little townnand soon all eyes were frozen on the water bearing downnthe iced river was pouring in she was gonna have her waynbut they had to try and stop her before she washed the valley awaynnSo they tried to plug the hole by dropping coal gondolas innbut they were sucked right through like a man led into sinnthey knew the mines were all connected and lay helplessly alonenthe anthracite in the valley would drown in its own homennThe men inside were running the old men falling behindnForeman Myron Thomas tried to keep on the upper sidenwater sounded like a train bearing down on himnso he told his men to pray barely heard above the dinnn(break)nnJoe Stella had stayed behind with some of the older mennand as they stumbled through the water he felt the breath of air hit themnthe abandoned Eagle shaft pointed up towards the skynand Amedo Pancotti lifted himself on highnnNow Amedo spoke little english but he rushed across the landnand made himself understood the way only an Italian cannsoon a rope was dropped on down to the surface they made their waynsaid he didn’t deserve the Carnegie medal they pinned it on him anywaynnNow Thomas was still crawling with 25 men in townholding their breath beneath the timbers that were neglected years agonhe ordered every other man to extinguish his lampnto preserve the fading light like the hope in the cold and dampnn(break)nnThey came upon a rotted door and somehow knocked it downnand a wisp of air barely made its way but no one made a soundnsome feared if they squeezed through they’d never make it homenBut Thomas said it’s now or never boys at least we won’t die alonennThat old eagle shaft stayed open so the Lord could peer on throughnand soon the men heard voices and the fresh air grewnas the rope was tied around his waist Thomas took a last look aroundnand thanked the men who sunk the old eagle shaft and his feet they left the groundnnTwelve men still lay in the Old Knox Mine with nothing to light their waynhow many have walked over their graves no one can ever saynmost have forgotten the way things were back in 1959nwhen the Susquehanna river smashed through the Knox Company Minenn(break)


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Lyrics by Tom Flannery

  (I'm Gonna) Convert You or Kill Ya   1913 Massacre pt. II   60 Years   A Canary in the Mines   A Long Long Time Ago   A Soldier's Lullaby   Across The Border   Afghaniwho?   Always Out Of Sight   Alyssa's Lament   Andrew Beard   Angeline   Annabelle   Another Christmas In Iraq   Another Man   Antietam   Appomottox   Atticus Finch   Auctioneer   Autumn's Harvest   Back In The Valley   Baghdad Blues   Baltimore Street   Beautiful Berlin   Belt Buckles   Bended Knees   Better Mind The Water   Bikindi   Black Diamonds   Blacksburg   Blame it on the Death of Charles Kuralt   Blind Willie Johnson   Blueberry Wine   Bob Hope   Bob Tailed Check   Brooklyn Girl   Brother Ray   Bruce Springsteen in Baghdad   Bull Run   Bully   But He Walked The Line   Can You See Me   Centralia   Chalkboard   Chancellorsville   Chickamauga   Christmas In Kigali   Christmas Without You   Cinderella Man   Cindy's Around   Clarksdale Whistle Blues   Closing Time   Coaster   Cold Harbor   Coming Back To You   Confession   Confusion   Crayons and Paper   Cut and Run   Darfur   Dave Brubeck   Dear John   Devil In My Shoes   Dividing Line   Do You Ever Wonder?   Do You Know How Hard It Is?   Don't Come Crying To Me   Don't Piss Off A Lutheran   Dressed To Impress   Drinking with Nick Drake   Drunk On Oil   Dumb People   Election Day   Everything Gonna Be Alright   Famine in the USA   Favorite Son   Feel Like Coming Home   Festival Season   Flying is Easy (It's the Landing that's Hard)   Footprints in the Snow   Footprints of the Fisherman   Forgetting Sudan   Fork in the Road   Four More Years   Frances   Franklin   From Selma to Montgomery   From What I Can See   Get Over It   Ghost Town   Ghost Town (Centralia)   Gimme a Drink   Gino Merli   God's Other Side   Going Through The Motions   Gonna Write A Song About Me   Gonna Write The Last Song   Goodbye Old Friend   Gotta Get Away   Government Man   Gulag Blues   Half Bottle Of Wine   Hallelujah and Fallujah   Halliburton Blues   Hands in the Dark   Hang 'em High   Hanger Number One   Harry Truman   Have You Ever Known Anyone Like Teddy?   Having My Picture Made   Haymarket Square   Hendersonville   Hey, Guess What Happened Today?   Hey, Whadda You Think?   Highway 9 Revisited   Holy War   Houston Town   How Do You Live With Yourself?   Hurry Home Baby   Hush Little Baby   I Ain't Gonna Fight For You No More   I Ain't So Sure Anymore   I Ain't So Sure No More   I Am A Houston Astros Fan   I Don't Feel Like A Liberator   I Don't Hate The President   I Don't Owe You Nothing Anymore   I Don't Think I Can Take It Anymore   I Don't Want To Be Saddam's Half Brother Anymore   I Feel Like An Orphan Train   I Got A Bad Feeling 'bout Dylan   I Just Wanna Got Home   I Like To Lie   I Need A Tax Cut (To Bring My Baby Home)   I Think I'm Turning Into Abbie Hoffman   I Thought It Was The Thunder (But It Was Really Ju...   I Used To Be A Liberal (Until A Conservative Shot ...   I Wanna Edit The New York Times   I Want A Job Like Garrison Keillor's   I Want To Go To War   I Was A Bootlegger   I Wish I Could Sing Like Richard Manuel   I Wsh I Was A Drunk Again   I'll Tell You What He Did   I'm A Soldier   I'm Anti War   I'm Coming Home   I'm Gonna Fade Away   I'm Gonna Stay   I'm In Love With John Ashcroft   I'm Missing You   I'm So Glad Vernon Presley's Not My Dad   I'm Still Here   I'm Sure Ben Franklin Wanted It This Way   I've Never Seen This Much Rain   I've Seen War, Have You?   Ian Wagner   Idi Amin's House   If I Could Talk Like David Brinkley   If Jesus Had A Wife   If Phil Ochs Was Still Alive   If Woody Guthrie Went To Baghdad   If You Pay Me Enough (I'll Write A Song About Bush...   In My Next Life I'm Coming Back as an Economist   In the Name of the Father   Inauguration Day   Invisible Sky   Iraqi Town   Iron City Brew   It Has Not Been a Good Day   It Must Be Cool to be British   It Must Suck to be Colin Powell   It Sucks to be 13   It Toby Keith is Such a Patriot (Why Won't He Send...   It's Almost Time for Curtain   It's Called Genocide   It's Only Money   Jenny McLane   Johnson's Station   King Coal   Lonesome Valley   Marie's Song   Miner Boy   Moshing With David Crosby   My Little Boy In The Mines   Pettigrew   Rescue Me   Seems Like the Place to Be   Shiloh   Song About a Train   Steve Earle Blues   The Anthracite Shuffle   The Killing Land   The Newfie Wedding Song   The Wilderness   Two Coal Cars   Was I You Yesterday?   We'll Burn With the Anthracite   We'll Sing Hallelujah   When The Rains Came   When You Pass Me By   Where I'm At   Why Do You Blame Me?

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