She said goodbye to her son at the age of 21, he left his home to start a family. He worked down in the mines till the age of 69, when his lungs gave out and so did both his knees. An old grey house lined in a row was all he had to show, working four to store and eight years of his life, but they paid the doctors well as a trade off for his health and a monthly check that barely gets them by. And the rich man has his gold, and the company has its gold, and the devil owns your soul. Well he built up all the streams with a refuge from the seams, and the mountain tops were stripped of rocks and mud. And when the rain came down on that barren ground, there was nothing to prevent an awful flood. And the rich man has his gold, and the company has its gold, and the devil owns your soul. Well I guess if the truth be told, he was paid what he was owed, for the part he played in nature's compromise. But we never laid the blame for disaster when it came, on the greed that posed with progress as its guide. And the rich man has his gold, and the company has its gold, and the devil owns your soul. And the rich man has his wealth, and the company has his health, and your soul is doomed to hell.