"Down in a deep dark hole"

Presenting the definitive list of..some really good songs about mining! Why? Because I'm into that kind of thing, and that is what self-indulgent blogs are for. Right?

Oh, and because for most people, music has a tremendous power to make an instant connection and to elicit emotional response. There's an incredibly rich history of American song related to American industry, making labor songs a resource more museums might explore as an alternate access point, enrichment, or subject unto itself.

The American Textile History Museum, for example, has worked successfully with high school students to record contemporary renditions of traditional cotton mill songs, now featured in the museum's cell phone audio tour.

These are mostly -- but not exclusively -- about coal. Because I'm hung up on coal these days. But you get a little hard rock mining (click it, and laugh inappropriately...at the domain name, not at the worst hard rock mining disaster in US history) and steel mills thrown in here too, lucky!

• Gillian Welch, Miner's Refrain (see post title)
• Bob Dylan, North Country Blues [You just have to go get a legit version of this song. Or watch Joan Baez sing it on YouTube, I suppose.]
• Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter
• Steep Canyon Rangers, Call the Captain
• Devo, Working in a Coal Mine
• The Grateful Dead, Beat it on Down the Line
• The Johnson Mountain Boys, Blue Diamond Mines
• The Decemberists, Rox in the Box
• Woodie Guthrie, Hard Travelin'
• Steve Earle, The Mountain

...Want even more? Who wouldn't?!