Levon Helm is from the Arkansas Delta, and Steve Earle, the writer of the song, is from Texas.
Neither is from a coal mining region.
However, Levon did play a coal miner in a movie.
As an addition to my post on the clearances of Guisachan, I think I should give you an idea of what these farmers thought about their lands being turned over to shooting estates.
Robert Burns, who worked as a tenant farmer in South Ayrshire, penned these words that probably perfectly captured the sentiments of these poor evicted crofters:
Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn’s pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o’er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer.
The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountains
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountains
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet
Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt away! the cruel sway
Tyrannic man’s dominion
The sportsman’s joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering gory pinion
But Peggy dear, the evening’s clear
Thick files the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the field’s in view
All fading green and yellow
Com let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature
We’ll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I’ll grasp thy waiste and, fondly pressed
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, and lovely charmer.
Here’s Dick Gaughan performing these lyrics of the Bard of Ayrshire:
I saw this last night, and I loved it!
All of the theologians who wear the cloth in this documentary are Episcopalian/Anglican. You won’t find many conservative Roman Catholics or Southern Baptists talking like this!
I mentioned in that post about Traveller that I am a Knight of the Golden Horseshoe. I earned this honor after I scored high enough on a test about West Virginia’s history, culture, politics, and the economy. This test is given to eighth graders, because it is in the eighth grade that all West Virginia students must take West Virginia History and Studies.
The title comes from a 1715 safari across the Blue Ridge led by the colonial Virginia lieutenant governor Alexander Spotswood. Upon returning from their journey, r Spotswood gave the members of his party a golden horseshoe to recognize their achievement
I didn’t have to cross the wilderness beyond the Blue Ridge to get my golden horseshoe. (In fact, the area where he visited is now a rather densely populated part of the Shenandoah Valley and isn’t wilderness at all.) I just had to take a test.
To get an idea of the kind of test I took, here is the 1955 Golden Horseshoe test.
Mine was scored on a scan-tron, so it was a bit more technologically advanced than that test.
