Harsh segue into coal Miner's Daughter. I imagined the youthful Loretta Lynn being introduced by the mc on the Grand Old Opry stage...'and now, fuck that west vagina clown, Here's Loretta Young to sing....'
(Senator Byrd (D) WV was of course a staunch supporter of the coal industry at the time of the song's release. So, fuck him too.)
Yeah, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter I remember well, the well where I drew water The work we done was hard At night we'd sleep 'cause we were tired Never thought of ever leaving Butcher Holler
Well, a lot of things have changed since a way back then Ah, and it's so good to be back home again Not much left but the floors, nothing lives here anymore 'Cept the memories of a coal miner's daughter 'Cept the memories of a coal miner's daughter
Working in the coal mines was a perilous job that offered little reward. Even when the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ensured workers a federal minimum wage, 25 cents an hour, it didn't do much for coal workers, who weren't paid by the hour, but by the ton. Lynn's father, Theodore Melvin "Ted" Webb, faced risks of collapses, gas explosions, and gas poisoning and a host of potential illnesses every day, and if he was lucky, he could bring home a few dollars for his trouble.
Webb lost his job at the Van Lear Coal Mines when he suffered a stroke when he was already struggling with pneumoconiosis (black lung), a chronic lung disease from regularly breathing in the dust in the mines. He would die of another stroke in 1959 at age 51.
This topped the country chart for one week in December 1970. It was also Lynn's first crossover to the Hot 100, where it peaked at #83.
When Lynn wrote this song, it had four additional verses that her producer, Owen Bradley, told her to remove. "He said, 'There's already been one 'El Paso,' and there's never going to be another one,' Lynn told the TV Critics Association in 2016. "So I fiddled around and fiddled around, and finally I got four verses that I took off of 'Coal Miner's Daughter.' I wished I hadn't, but I did."
Sadly, these verses were lost forever, as Lynn left them in the studio.
On the whole, it is true that the coal industry still generates a lot of money for West Virginia. But when things like the compromised health and work injuries that come from working in the industry and things like the wear and tear on the state's roads and infrastructure are paid off, the state comes out a loser from hosting its coal industry.
In this season of graduations, it is worth noting that while so-called smart people continue to sneer that the New Energies can never be big enough to replace the Old and Dirty Energies, Senator Byrd showed that it is never too late to learn. Now that he has gone to his final graduation, perhaps it is time for his beloved state to pay close attention to his last strong advice about coal:
"The future of coal and indeed of our total energy picture," Byrd, one of West Virginia's greatest champions, wrote, "lies in change and innovation. In fact, the future of American industrial power and our economic ability to compete globally depends on our ability to advance energy technology....West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose."
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