The East Kentucky Mountains

Oh the times they are hard in the East Kentucky mountains,
Where the creeks run as dark as a poor man’s berry wine,
Where the guns never rust when a man has strong opinions,
That he passes to his children when he leaves his woman cryin’,

When he got out of the army Leonard courted Willa Jean,
And to see her in her weddin’ dress, you’d swear she was sixteen,
They let him join the union and he worked the deep shaft mines,
And the babies came like harvests just to mark the passing time,

And Leonard drove a ten ton dump, and Leonard worked the mine,
And Leonard kept a garden and grew old before his time,
And Will with her quiltin’ passed the hours she called her own,
Sent her kids off down the hollow, just to walk their Daddy home,

But a wildcat strike in eighty one, it closed the Harlan mines,
And a union man feels naked holding nothin’ but a sign,
So guns came out and shots were fired and dynamite got thrown,
Now Willa Jean’s a widow raisin’ seven kids alone,

And the times they are hard in the East Kentucky mountains,
Where the creeks run as dark as a poor man’s berry wine,
Where the guns never rust when a man has strong opinions,
That he passes to his children when he leaves his woman cryin’.