Lawrence Jones

Well the night is as thick as silence

You can't cut it with a knife

A man lies in the hospital

Draining out his life

The trucks are on the back road

And in the dark the headlights shine

'Cause there's one man dead

On that Harlan County line

Oh anger, like poison

Is eating at your soul

Your thoughts are as loud as gunfire

Your face as hard as coal

Bitterness, like buckshot explodes inside your mind

And there's one man dead

On that Harlan County line

Oh a miner's life is fragile

It could shatter just like ice

But those who bear the struggle

Have always pay the price

There's blood upon the contact

Like vinegar in wine

And there's one man dead

On that Harlan County line

From the river bridge at Highsplint

To the Brookside railroad track

You can feel the long streak building

That can never be turned back

The dead go forward with us

Not one is left behind

'Cause there's one man dead

On that Harlan County line

Where the night is as cold as iron

You can feel it in your bones

It settles like a shroud on the grave of Lawrence Jones

The graveyard shift is walking from the bathhouse into the mine

And there's one man dead

On that Harlan County line

One man dead

On that Harlan County line

One miner dead

On that Harlan County line