Basically, we are all alone at the center of a pickaxe mine
Black lung stings as the pick-axe swings
And the void of the mine closes in
The devil came and the angels sang
The song of the Holy Ghost
Tempted the soul from the pennies to the gold
Like the dust I spit from my mouth

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

Remember the night with the barroom fight
Where I killed all of my best friends
We gambled it away with the whiskey open keg
And we never saw it again
Well, I had a wife that I met back in high school
Her name was Lyla-Jean
We saved away to escape some place
On a local miner's minor pay

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

We saved so long, the fall came and gone
At least 27 times
It fell through the floorboards into deep dark darkness
And we never saw it again
So West Virginia's home and that's where we're staying
To the blade of the bible hymn
Jesus says we're wicked, so we just keep on pickin'
At the scab of the open mine

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah