Exclusive video: Fire in the Hole

If you attended a workshop with Windborne in the last few months before coronavirus shut things down, you probably sang this song with us! It’s become one of our favorites to teach–its message of solidarity, grooving tempo, and interesting shifts from major to minor make it a fun piece for us to sing… which is good, because when we’re touring and teaching, we are singing it A LOT. 🙂 

Although it fits easily into the canon of union songs, in researching the tracks for our Song on the Times album, we were surprised to learn that this song was relatively recently composed, and not for a strike at all, but for the soundtrack of a movie. Matewan (1987) is a fictionalized account of a coal miners’ strike in 1920 that draws many details from historical events. Director John Sayles and composer Mason Daring wrote Fire in the Hole for the great Hazel Dickens to sing on the soundtrack, and the song became part of her repertoire. 

The original song had only two verses, which didn’t feel like enough to us, so we wrote a third verse. In doing so, we had a long conversation about the inherent conflict of singing songs in support of coal miners, but not being in support of the coal industry, both from an environmental standpoint and based on the history (and present) of labor struggles. We chose our words very carefully in the third verse to emphasize building solidarity among workers to stand up against lords of industry, which is a sentiment we feel transcends both time and occupation. We sing it to shine a light on the proud history of labor unions, but also to spark conversation about the choices we make in the lyrics we choose to sing. 

We know many choirs, pub sings, song circles, and other communities are having similar conversations right now about songs with lyrics that relate to other big societal issues such as racism and sexism. These can be challenging and emotional conversations for people on all sides, but in light of the flagrant acts of racism that have been in the news this week, we are reminded that as white people it is our job to confront systemic racism in all parts of our lives. This is the only way that we can grow to be a truly just society. 

We must not shy away from the discomfort that comes with acknowledging that some of our favorite songs might be excellent music, but perpetuate ideas and depictions that are actively harmful to people today. The actions we take with that knowledge define our character. Folk music feels like it’s a long way away from acts of police violence or a white woman who tries to intimidate a black man with the threat of that violence, but only by examining the seemingly innocuous corners of our lives will we be able to root out all the ways that we as white people unintentionally hold up racist structures and benefit from systems of white supremacy. 

Are those thoughts and conversations hard? Yes. Should we have them anyway? Definitely. Will we always come up with the right answer? Probably not, but we have to try, and be willing to listen, learn, change, and then keep trying.

This all may seem disconnected from Fire in the Hole, a song about coal miners and unions, but this piece is a relatively tame example of how words matter. In Windborne, we talk about the issues of history, context, and impact with all our music these days, and it’s a process of constant reflection and learning. The songs we sing and the lyrics we choose have an effect on our audiences. As people who share songs it is our duty to ensure that, to the best of our abilities, we are not causing harm, inadvertently or not.

What questions do you ask in your communities (or to yourself) when thinking about what songs to sing?