Uploaded November 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

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Dark as a Dungeon is an old country and western classic originally penned by Merle Travis in 1946 and subsequently covered by such luminaries as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Harry Belafonte, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Here Australia's own luminous Uncle Jack Charles performs his rendition of Dark as a Dungeon:


Come all you young fellas so brave and so fine
And seek not your fortune way down in the mine
It will form like a habit and seep in your soul
In the streams of your blood is as black as the coal

Oh it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

There's many a man I've known in my day
Who lived just to labour his whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine
These men must have lust for the lure of the mine

Well it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

I hope when I die and the ages will roll
My body will blacken and turn into coal
As I look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miner a-diggin' my bones

For it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the dangers are double and the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines
Yes.

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