Backup Wells - Shades Below Superior

brando

This is the first of several songs in a collaboration with Laura Kepner-Adney. Laura has a beautiful voice and a gift for arranging music. It is an exciting project with more to come.
Featuring Ryan Anderson on harmonica.

Lyrics:

As a boy in desperate times I left my home
with empty pockets the desert I did roam
and in search of my master
I gazed up at its cloudless dome

I met a man at the inn who paid my stay
He said “my son what would you give up for a wage?”
and in his coal black eyes
I knew I’d signed myself away

But finally with a wage that I could send
for my starving family I would descend
in to those shades below
where I would one day meet my end

Now I know
I was born a station below
and greed has locked the door
and I will be here forever more

The days were long, the hours hard, and we were ill
We slept on damp and stony floors and by God’s will
The man slept in comfort
in his house up on the hill

After many years of sending home our pay
A friend was working when the ground ’neath him gave way
And without a second thought
I turned to free him from the clay

The rafters in the mine they creaked and ached
A beam came crashing down and severed our escape
and as we sucked that precious air
We cursed the man who sealed our fate

Now I know
I was born a station below
and greed has locked the door
and I will be here forever more

Far far below
The surface that I call home
Locked beneath the desert floor
I will be here forever more