**"Tales from the Bottle"** *(Johnny Cash style - spoken word)* [Intro: Slow, sparse guitar picking] [Verse 1: Very slow spoken delivery, like telling a story at a bar] *(Spoken - slow and gravelly)* It was 1959... I remember it like yesterday... I was working in the coal mines outside of Harlan County... Black dust in my lungs... dirt under my nails... Sixteen hours a day for three dollars and change... One night... I just walked away... [Chorus: Sung, mournful] *(Sung)* Lord, I've seen too much to forget Lord, I've done too much to regret [Verse 2: Spoken even slower, with pauses] *(Spoken - with long pauses)* Hitchhiked to Nashville... guitar on my back... Slept under bridges... ate from trash cans... Played for nickels on Broadway... Nobody wanted to hear songs about miners dying... They wanted happy tunes... but I only knew the darkness... [Chorus: Sung] *(Sung)* Lord, I've seen too much to forget Lord, I've done too much to regret [Verse 3: Spoken, almost whispered] *(Spoken - nearly whispered)* Fifty years later... here I am... Same guitar... different scars... Sometimes late at night... I still hear those hammers in the mine... Still feel that coal dust in my throat... You can leave the mountain... but it never leaves you... [Outro: Spoken over dying guitar] *(Spoken)* Pour me another one, bartender... this story ain't over yet...
