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When I Go To West Virginia (Coal Mine Owner's Daughter​/​Sally Ann

from Where the Wild Birds Do Whistle 1997 by Atwater-Donnelly

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    A collection of Appalachian, Celtic, and original work. This album is dedicated to Elwood's mother, Catherine, who died on January 6, 1997.

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about

When I Go To West Virginia (Coal Mine Owner's Daughter/Sally Ann
Written by Aubrey Atwater, ©1996 BMI; part fiction, part true story of Aubrey's family background and inspired by Aubrey’s family’s history of owning and operating coal mines in the early 1900s. The Atwater Coal Company transported coal from Bluefield, West Virginia to the Fall River knitting mills in Massachusetts.
Sally Ann, Traditional

lyrics

Well on a good day, you can see very far,
Just drive up high and get out of your car.
On 77 or 460, just look and the view then look at me

Chorus:
Oh the hills of West Virginia are green and lush,
And I go to hear the music

One small mountain after another, pushes out of the earth
They're falling over each other, like children, except look over there
It must be an apparition, in the distance, a mesa
Strip mining has left one hill naked, and oddly flat...Chorus

When I go to West Virginia, I don't say much
Years ago my people owned mines in the Pocahontas coal field
Well you might say now what's all the fuss
And why do I say I don't say much
But I wouldn't call parts of two states a "field"…Chorus

Instrumental

Now the stripped land, the faces, the sickness,
The unemployment tell me too much
And all that happened all of those years was before my time…Chorus

I was raised well in a New England town,
And educated at expensive schools
Our lives were warmly heated
By the coal transported by ship from West Virginia
By the coal transported by ship from West Virginia
By the coal transported by ship from West Virginia

And on a good day, you can see very far,
Just drive up high and get out of your car.
On 77 or 460, just look at the view then look at me
Look and the view then look at me,
Look and the view then look at me

credits

from Where the Wild Birds Do Whistle 1997, released May 9, 1997
Aubrey Atwater: vocals, banjo
Elwood Donnelly: vocals, bones
Cari Norris: vocals, guitar
Steve LaValley: Djembe

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Atwater-Donnelly Warren, Rhode Island

Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly, present delightful programs of traditional American and Celtic folk songs, a capella pieces, old-time gospel songs, dance tunes, and original works, blending gorgeous harmonies with guitar, Appalachian mountain dulcimer, mandolin, tin whistle, harmonica, banjo, bones, spoons, limberjacks, and Appalachian clog dancing and French Canadian footwork. ... more

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