Damned Old Piney Mountains

Some years ago in the mountains of West Virginia, Craig Johnson met an old logger, once a fiddler, who explained why he could no longer make music. He had lost all four of the fingers on his left hand. Craig listened to his story, sang him the requested "sad old song," and then wrote this outstanding one. As long as we have people like Craig making songs like this (and the next one), we can be assured that what I like to call our Continuing tradition" will do exactly that—continue. Folk-Legacy is proud to act as Craig's publisher.

(Similarly:)

I started in to logging when I was in my prime,
Hitchin' up spruce to the big drag-line.
And the skidders started buckin' when the gears come down,
Makin' God's own thunder on the new-cul ground.

We was fightin' over nothin' and drinkin' too hard,
Ridin' up to camp on a flat-wheel car.
I was thirty years a-hangin' on the old chain brake.
I got laid off and paid off in '58.

Now the skidders got sold to the scrap-iron yard.
I moved down Virginia when the times got hard.
And I lost my fingers to the steel bandsaw.
My fiddle just hangs, untuned, on the wall.

Now the trees have growed up in the loggin' road
And wildflowers bloom where the big Shays blowed.
And there's nothin' left for me but to drink and smoke.
My hands can't fiddle and my heart's been broke.