The Dying Doctor Lyrics - Woody Guthrie

Doctor Leo Hayes was our company doctor 

From the big coal companies he got his pay 

For thirty-nine years he tried to cure us 

And now today on his deathbed lay. 

He called his five boys and his three daughters 

And at his bed we stood around 

We heard him tell the history of the coal miners 

And he said, "Don't let these people down." 

You are all connected with the practice of medicine 

You promise you'll keep true I know 

You will do your best to help these people 

I close my eyes for I must go. 

His youngest girl was Doctor Betty 

With her face so pretty and her smile so sweet 

She walked the coal towns of Force and Byrndale 

She saw the sewage waters flowing down the street. 

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She saw the children drink the cankered water 

She saw the chickens fly up on the roof 

She saw the waters overflow the sewers 

And flood their gardens of victory. 

She went to the big shots of the Shawmut Company 

She did not beg and she did not plead 

She stood flatfooted and pounded the table 

Sewer pipes and bathrooms are what we need. 

My dady told me to fight to cure sickness 

But I can't cure sickness with sewage all around 

These germs kill people quicker than I can cure them 

We need a foundation under every house. 

We need a bathroom for every family 

Yes, you can set there and blink your eyes 

Three hundred miners are out behind me 

We will clean this town or know the reason why. 

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I quit my job as the family doctor 

I nailed up my shingle and went on my own 

I carried my pillbag and waded those waters 

I set by a deathbed in many a home. 

I saw you catch rainwater in rusty washtubs 

I saw you come home dirty up out of your pits 

Watched you ride with your coffin up to your graveyard 

With not a nickel to pay your burying debt. 

On July the fifteenth from the hills around 

Three hundred miners walked down through town 

The state inspector was testing the water 

While he was working you stood around. 

One miner asked him to have a drink free 

The inspector looked out toward our pits 

He set his hat back on his head and says, 

"I wouldn't drink a drop of that on a bet." 

I think of my daddy and brothers and sisters 

When we stood around his dying bed 

When I walk the streets of the company towns 

I can hear every word my daddy said. 

The Shawmut Company is caught in its own paws 

The people not worth the money they cost 

A hundred have died, three hundred not working 

Thirty thousand tons of coal is lost.