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Fountain Filled With Blood

[ Roud - ; Joan Boyd]

Helen Bonchek Schneyer sang Fountain Filled With Blood in 1978 on her Folk-Legacy album On the Hallelujah Line. She noted:

Joan Boyd wrote these words, based on the old hymn [William Cowper’s There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood]. I have included this song because it is a good example of one of the uses religious music is put to in this country. Particularly among miners, the use of melodies of familiar hymns as the tunes for songs of protest against working conditions was and is still common. It is also a magnificent song with a fierce and dedicated fervour about it, despite its secular subject. I learned it from the singing of Mike Kline, who moved me to tears when I first heard him do it.

Lyrics

Helen Bonchek Schneyer sings Fountain Filled With Blood

There is a fountain filled with blood,
The blood of our mining men so brave,
Who worked together in the black coal pits,
Men who dug each other’s graves.
Men who dug each other’s graves, oh, Lord,
Men who dug each other’s graves,
Who worked together in the black coal pits,
Men who dug each other’s graves.

There is a stream that’s filled with tears,
The tears of our children and our wives,
For their husbands and sons, all good mining men,
Who so senselessly have died.
Who so senselessly have died, oh Lord,
Who so senselessly have died.
For their husbands and sons, all good mining men,
Who so senselessly have died.

There is a river deep and wide
That once was so beautiful and grand,
Till the strip-miners tore down our mountainside;
Now it runs brown with the blood of our land.
It runs brown with the blood of our land, oh Lord,
It runs brown with the blood of our land.
Till the strip-miners tore down our mountainside;
Now it runs brown with the blood of our land.

There is a fountain filled with blood,
The blood of our brave mining men.
Let us stand beneath its powerful flood,
Be revived to fight and win.
Be revived to fight and win, oh Lord,
Be revived to fight and win.
Let us stand beneath its powerful flood,
Be revived to fight and win.