Dark as a Dungeon
“Dark as a Dungeon” is a song written by Merle Travis and first recorded in 1946. Merle Travis also wrote “Sixteen Tons,” which was recorded and made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
This song is most famous from “Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison” where Cash interrupts his performance of the song to remind some of the prisoners, “No laughing during the song, please.” And after the song, he announces, “”I just wanted to tell you that this show is being recorded for an album released on Columbia Records, and you can’t say ‘hell’ or ’shit’ or anything like that.”
Along with Johnny Cash, “Dark as the Dungeon” has also been recorded and performed by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dolly Parton, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman, and Bob Dylan & Joan Baez.
Dark as a Dungeon
by Merle Travis
Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
‘Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
(additional stanza rarely performed by Merle Travis:)
The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day,
Is the same to the miner who labors away.
Where the demons of death often come by surprise,
One fall of the slate and you’re buried alive.