We Work The Black Seam - Sting

This place has changed for good

Your economic theory said it would

It’s hard for us to understand

We can’t give up our jobs the way we should

Our blood has stained the coal

We tunneled deep inside the nation’s soul

We matter more than pounds and pence

Your economic theory makes no sense

One day in a nuclear age

They may understand our rage

They build machines that they can’t control

And bury the waste in a great big hole

Power was to become cheap and clean

Grimy faces were never seen

But deadly for twelve thousand years is carbon fourteen

We work the black seam together

The seam lies underground

Three million years of pressure packed it down

We walk through ancient forest lands

And light a thousand cities with our hands

Your dark satanic mills

Have made redundant all our mining skills

You can’t exchange a six inch band

For all the poisoned streams in Cumberland

Our conscious lives run deep

You cling onto your mountain while we sleep

This way of life is part of me

The is no price so only let me be

And should the children weep

The turning world will sing their souls to sleep

When you have sunk without a trace

The universe will suck me into place