Westray – Short Notice

You can hear a recording of this song on the United Steelworkers’ website and on youtube:

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Lyrics

The flesh and bone and the steel’s entwined
There’s blood on the coal in the Westray mine
There’s blood on the coal in the Westray mine

Pictou county is Tory blue
Dyed in the wool and blue collar too
Elect a Prime Minister they’ll treat you kind
They’ll give you a job in the Westray mine

The foord seam coal is known to kill
Every scar on her face she has always filled
With the lives of the men who have loathe to find
To stay they must work in a foord seam mine

Knee deep in dust they worked every day
Inspectors and mine bosses looked the other way
You want to keep your job you will tow the line
Not a word leaves the bowels of the Westray mine

Recession makes men work where they should not stay
They will risk their lives for a good days pay
Till gas and politics grew too great to confine
Blew the roof off the ramp of the Westray mine

Bare faced miners and draegermen too
Did all that good brave men could do
But not a living soul was there left to find
After hell had its way in the Westray mine

Twenty-two families were torn that day
Working men’s dreams simply snuffed away
While Frame and Phillips still live happy lives
They lose no sleep over the Westray mine

Many years have passed sadly little has changed
After all this time not one scoundrel’s paid
Till politicians’ lives are on the line
Good men will die in some Westray mine

The death blast roar and the sirens whine
Pray those husbands sons and brothers aren’t yours and mine
Leave their soul on the rock in the Westray mine
Soul on the rock in the Westray mine


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