Where The New Road Goes

I tried to go to the home place the other day,

But the road doesn’t go there anymore.

The road stops at the mouth of the hollow.

It is all grown up where it was before.

The road used to go by houses and farms,

With the school and church, they’re all gone.

The hills and trees have been moved and burnt.

Now home is no longer home, forever gone.

What would it have been like without king coal?

That is something we will probably never know.

It is true, the road doesn’t go there anymore,

We’ll have to wait to see which way,

The new road goes.

Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, it is known,

Coal was a necessary evil, a blessing and a curse.

It gave needed wealth that was evenly dispersed,

To the miner’s billfolds, then the women’s purse.

Times were good around here when coal was king.

We had what we needed and things we didn’t.

Towns were prospering and stores springing up.

We try to say it is better now it’s gone, but it isn’t.

Mining coal was destructive but also productive.

What was torn down was elsewhere rebuilt.

Houses, trailers, double wides and apartments,

Some took their new wealth and ran, with no guilt.

What would it have been like without king coal?

That is something we will probably never know.

It is true, the road doesn’t go there anymore,

We’ll have to wait to see which way,

The new road goes.

Now that coal is gone, the counties are failing.

They have less taxes to do what needs done.

The state invents taxes, for school, on electricity,

They are going to leave us without a dollar one.

What would it have been like without king coal?

That is something we will probably never know.

It is true, the road doesn’t go there anymore,

We’ll have to wait to see which way,

The new road goes.

We will just have to see where the new road goes.