Dark As A Dungeon

Johnny Cash

Written by Merle Travis

Key of C · Chords: I IV V

Verse 1

C                          F            G7
Come listen you fellows so young and so fine
C                               F           C
Oh seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mine
F                                        G7
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
C                                    F            C
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal

Verse 2

C    G7                                C
It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
G7                                               C
Where the danger is double and the pleasures are few
C7                         F                 G7
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
C                          F           C
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

Verse 3

It's a-many a man I've known in my day
Who lived just to labor his life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine

Verse 4

The midnight the morning or the middle of the day
It's the same to the miner who labors away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and your buried alive

Verse 5

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-digging my bones