Coal Mining Top Ten: Trip to Hyden (#9)

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Digging for coal is a horrible job, and a number of the songs on this countdown about my ten favorite songs dealing with the occupation will point that out. Today's song has a direct connection to my recent eastern Kentucky trip, in a number of ways. Here it is. #9: Trip to Hyden - Tom T. Hall Earlier this week I wrote about my trip to Hyden, to see the Hurricane Creek Mining Disaster Memorial. Tom T. Hall wen there as well, but while the wounds were still fresh. This song was written a couple of months after the disaster. Tom T. Hall is known as "The Storyteller," and for good reason: his songs are snapshots of life. The album this song appears on, In Search of a Song, came from a visit to eastern Kentucky (where Hall is from) and tells the things he saw along the way. One of those things was a stop in Hyden, just two months after the disaster. Here Hall doesn't detail the actual explosion, but rather the zombie-like life that goes on after such a tragic event. (The sole survivor of the explosion lost three family members that day.) "Back in town I bought a heavy jacket from a store," Hall sings. "It was sunny down in Hyden, but somehow the town was cold." Hall hits a few nails that need to be hit squarely on the head in this song. One is how mining companies see workers as chattel (you'll see that repeated in other songs in this countdown). Upon reaching "the scene of that disaster" Hall discovered that there "was not any sign of death at all, just another country hillside with some mud holes and some junk." Most of the memorials to mine disasters were not provided by the company that owned the mine where it happened. The other is the song's closing verse, where a bitter woman remarked, "They worth more money now than when they's a-livin'." There's so much truth in that statement that it warrants volumes of discussions. But, as Tom T. said, "I'll leave it there, 'cause I suppose she told it pretty well." Trip to Hyden Written by Tom T. Hall Recorded by Tom T. Hall From In Search of a Song, 1971 We stopped for beans and cornbread: