Sweet Guinevere, you're off to the coal town tonight
and your young brother Ernie's up in Pittsburgh PA.
You know mother loves you, and dad's in the mine
so don't go to the coal town, Guinevere, if you're kind.

She loves a young man and he lives in the town,
he leaves the house early for he works underground.
He makes a good wage for a coal miner's son
and she's a bit pretty, just turned twenty-one.
Sweet Guinevere, you're off to the coal town tonight
and your young brother Ernie's up in Pittsburgh PA.
You know mother loves you, and dad's in the mine
so don't go to the coal town, Guinevere, shut the blind.

She knows her good mother's not feeling no pain,
she remembers an explosion and the black falling rain.
She paints her thin lips in her dewy-eyed way
then she says to the daughter, dear daughter, I pray,
sweet Guinevere you're off to the coal town tonight
and your young brother Ernie's up in Pittsburgh PA.
You know mother loves you, and dad's in the mine
so don't go to the coal town, Guinevere, if you're kind.