Down in a coal mine

AKA
first published	1872

Lyrics

JB Geoghegan

Music

JB Geoghegan

Roud

RN3502

 I am a jovial collier lad, and blithe as blithe can be,
 For let the times be good or bad, they’re all the same to me
 ‘Tis little of the world I know, and care less for its ways,
 For where the Dog Star never glows, I wear away my days.
  
 Down in a coal mine, underneath the ground,
 Where a gleam of sunshine never can be found,
 Digging dusky diamonds all season round,
 Down in a coal mine, underneath the ground.
 
 My hands are horny, hard and black, with working in the vein,
 And like the clothes upon my back my speech is rough and plain,
 Well if I stumble with my tongue, I have one excuse to say
 To is not the collier’s heart that’s wrong, tis the head that goes astray.
  
 At every shift be it soon or late, I haste my bread to earn,
 And anxiously my kindred wait and watch for my return
 For death, that levels all alike, whate’er their rank may be,
 Amid the fire and damp may strike and fling his darts at me
  
 How little do the great ones care, who sit at home secure,
 What hidden dangers colliers dare, what hardships they endure,
 The very fires their mansions boast to cheer themselves and wives,
 Mayhap were kindled at the cost of jovial collier’s lives.
  
 Then cheer up lads, and make ye much of every joy ye can,
 But let your mirth be always such as best becomes a man,
 However Fortune turns about we’ll still be jovial souls,
 For what would England be without the lads that look for coals 

Another song by the prolific JB Geoghegan and sung by our friend from Leeds JW “Over” Rowley.

The earliest mention of the song in The Era was in 1871: Mr JW Rowley a recent arrival from the provinces, made his bow to an audience at the East of London and achieved great success. He has a nimble pair of feet, and treated the spectators to some step dancing of the right sort, which was given with ease grace and artistic finish. He will assuredly take first rang amongst them Music Hall singers. His characteristic songs “Down in a Coal Mine” and “The Donkey Driver” went immensely. (Jan 1, 1871).

The entry in the British Library catalogue has Down in a Coal Mine (song begins: “I am a jolly jovial collier lad”) written and composed by Joseph B Geoghegan published in London in 1873.

Rowley gifted the rights to sing the song in the USA to the early vaudeville impresario, Tony Pastor, who evidently sang it to great success. Along with Sarah’s Young Man it was a song Pastor loved to sing right up to the end of his career in 1908.

It appears 66 times in the Vaughn William Memorial Library, mostly reprinted in American song collections, though it does appear in a Glasgow broadside of 1871. It’s been collected from source singers at various times, including from the singing of “Yankee John Galusha” by Anne and Frank Warner in the 1940s and from George “Pop” Maynard in Sussex by Mervyn Plunkett in 1957. Cecil Sharp himself collected a version from the singing of Louis Hooper and Lucy White in Hambridge, Somerset in 1903.

As mentioned in the post on JB Geoghegan we can’t be absolutely certain that he wasn’t claiming to have written an already existing song, but given that no records of this one significantly predate the 1870s when it was published in his name, the balance of probability is that it was written by the man himself.

Sources:

• Sheet music for US version (1872) Library of Congress and (1872) Levy collection
• Sheet music for UK version (1873) British Library and its catalogue entry.
• Background and modified words: Yorkshire Garland Group (contains dead links)
• Records in VWML
• Ballad Index

Ian Campbell group sing:

Last Updated on March 16, 2024 by John Baxter | Published: February 4, 2020