Born in west Virginia, I've lived here all my life
Sixteen years a miner's daughter, then a miner's wife
Raised in Logan County, when the creeks they all ran clear
And Buffalo Holler's been my home for more than fifty year.
I remember when Staviski came, the one they called 'the Pole'
And the Johnsons, up from Georgie, their skins as black as coal
Even the Italians came because the mines were here
They been my friends in Buffalo Creek for more than fifty year.
Hunger took my baby girl in 1941
Black Lung took my husband, the army took my son
But of all the sorrows I have seen, the worst time I have known
Was the day the twons were washed away, when the old slate dam came down.
If your home was down the creek, you had time to get away
But if you lived up by the dam, you had only time to pray
It only took one hour of the water roaring through
To wipe out everything I had, most everyone I knew.
In '65 they warned us. Nobody made a will
But all the folks with money moved high up on the hill
It was only poor coal miners who died that Saturday
They can get plenty more like us, to come on a working day.
Experts said the dam would so if we had a heavy rain
The Bureau of Mines they wrote it down, and filed it down the drain
The Governor made promises the year the elections ran
Pittson called it an “Act or God” - I call it an act of man!
Don't wait for compensation, don't wait for them to care
If you can't make that dollar sign, they just don't know you're there
But I can't forget my Billy, who died in Vietnam
Fighting for the system that made the old slate dam.
Sixteen years a miner's daughter, then a miner's wife
Raised in Logan County, when the creeks they all ran clear
And Buffalo Holler's been my home for more than fifty year.
I remember when Staviski came, the one they called 'the Pole'
And the Johnsons, up from Georgie, their skins as black as coal
Even the Italians came because the mines were here
They been my friends in Buffalo Creek for more than fifty year.
Hunger took my baby girl in 1941
Black Lung took my husband, the army took my son
But of all the sorrows I have seen, the worst time I have known
Was the day the twons were washed away, when the old slate dam came down.
If your home was down the creek, you had time to get away
But if you lived up by the dam, you had only time to pray
It only took one hour of the water roaring through
To wipe out everything I had, most everyone I knew.
In '65 they warned us. Nobody made a will
But all the folks with money moved high up on the hill
It was only poor coal miners who died that Saturday
They can get plenty more like us, to come on a working day.
Experts said the dam would so if we had a heavy rain
The Bureau of Mines they wrote it down, and filed it down the drain
The Governor made promises the year the elections ran
Pittson called it an “Act or God” - I call it an act of man!
Don't wait for compensation, don't wait for them to care
If you can't make that dollar sign, they just don't know you're there
But I can't forget my Billy, who died in Vietnam
Fighting for the system that made the old slate dam.
inviata da Bernart Bartleby - 13/6/2017 - 21:10
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Parole e musica di Peggy Seeger
Nel disco “Folkways Record of Contemporary Songs”, con Ewan MacColl, Folkways Records
Aberfan, Wales, United Kingdom, 1966 = Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, USA, 1972.
In entrambe le località minerarie dedite all'estrazione del carbone si verificò che enormi accumuli di scarti di lavorazione, posti nel tempo a monte degli abitati, franarono a valle in seguito a giorni di piogge torrenziali, uccidendo nelle loro case centinaia di persone.
Responsabili furono le compagnie, che per aumentare il profitto non avevano provveduto ad uno smaltimento in sicurezza, e i governi, che avevano omesso i controlli più volte richiesti dagli abitanti, che sapevano della pericolosità della situazione ma molti di loro, le famiglie più povere, non erano in condizioni di mettersi da soli in sicurezza.
Nel caso di Aberfan, ci fu un padre che, quando venne chiamato dal medico legale per identificare suo figlio, pretese che sul certificato, alla descrizione della causa della morte, ci fosse scritto “Buried alive by the National Coal Board”...
Nel caso di Buffalo Creek, la protagonista, figlia e moglie di minatori, racconta la sua durissima vita: la nascita del villaggio minerario, con l'arrivo di tanti immigrati polacchi, italiani, negri; la morte per fame della figlioletta; la morte del marito per via della “malattia del polmone nero”; il richiamo del figlio nell'esercito... E poi la tragedia della frana/alluvione nera nel 1972, con la morte di 125 persone e la distruzione dell'intera comunità. E la proprietà, la Pittston Coal Company, ebbe pure il coraggio di dichiarare che si era trattato del “volere di Dio”!
La tristissima canzone si chiude con una tragica beffa ma anche con l'estrema consapevolezza acquisita dalla madre protagonista: il sistema che ha ucciso tanta gente a Buffalo Creek è lo stesso che ha mandato a morire tanti giovani in Vietnam, compreso suo figlio Billy...