Big Branch

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 70 k
But it wasn't worth all the things he had to give away
His father did the same thing same type
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

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 watchdogs would let them know
And out the dust pumps so the level reads low
The more violation the more production grows
Someone dies from black lung every time the wind blows

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
Learn the red, white 'n blue, process for myself
Iodine, ephedrine, red phosphorus
Highly combustible and high risk
BAAM, 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

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?