The Songs

Packsack Miner

David K.J. –lead vocals and guitar; Geoff Sommers –mandolin; David Woodhead –electric bass; Jason Laprade –dobro;
Carol Teal and Rosemary Phelan –harmony vocals

Years ago, when there were plenty of small mines around the continent, there were plenty of “Tramp Miners” or “Packsack Miners” as they were often called. They were Independent souls, miners who were good at their jobs and moved from mine to mine for better pay or just moved when they got fed up with their current situation...

I’m a packsack miner, just pulled in today
Got the wanderlust for better pay
When the word gets out of a better mine
I’ll load my pack and head down the line

I’ll mine your stope, bolt your back
Drive your raise or lay your track
I’ll sink your shaft, tram your muck
For the highest pay, for the biggest buck

Chorus
Oh, packsack miner, always come and gone
Oh, packsack miner, time for moving on

I’m kind of fickle, kind of rough
Don’t pull my chain, Don’t take no guff
Don’t need bosses, no over seers
I’m in it for the money, then I’m out of here

Chorus

From California to the Cariboo
To the Porcupine I’ll be passing through
From the Abitibi to the Rawdon Hills
I’ll draw my pay ‘till I’ve had my fill

Chorus

Crystals That I've Known

David K.J. – lead vocals and guitar; Alyssa Wright –cello; David Woodhead –electric bass

Most older mineral collectors have lots of stories about their collecting adventures and look back fondly over the years that they built their collections. Few ever want to stop!

I think of places that I’ve dug
Looking for the perfect vug
Looking back at what I’ve found
From hacking in the ground
Maybe a little blasting
With dynamite and drill
Revealed that special cavity
That gave me such a thrill

Chorus:
Oh, the crystals that I’ve known
Oh, the crystals that I’ve known
All the places that I’ve roamed
To bring those crystals home

Size counts in tourmalines
and dinner plate sized sphenes
Apatites that look like logs
Zircons the size of dogs
But unfortunately
My mineral encounters
Are mostly tiny crystals
fit for micro-mounters

Chorus

Sometimes, I’ve had some luck
Finding crystals that don’t suck
Worked my butt off in some hole
Museum quality my goal
I’ve searched across the nation
For undamaged terminations
To make the odds increase
That I’ll find the perfect piece

Chorus

I’m no spring chicken any more
I’m a collector to the core
I’ll climb the mountain and the hills
For those that elude me still
I’ll dig slower, I’ll dig smarter
More carefully, as it gets harder
I’ll keep digging in the bush
‘til my body turns to mush

Chorus
Chorus

Damn The Glaciers

David K. J. –lead vocals and guitar; David Woodhead –electric bass; Carol Teal, Rosemary Phelan and Jason Laprade –harmony vocals

Many regions of the earth have been scoured by glaciers and giant ice sheets in the most recent ice age. As a result of that, there are very few secondary minerals and oxidized rocks and ores in those regions, since they were scraped away by the glaciers and ice sheets. Mineral collectors that live in those places may feel indignant at the lack of oxidized mineral deposits, as captured in this song…

A hundred thousand years ago, the glaciers came again
A continental ice sheet miles thick
They scraped away our weathered rocks and all the
secondaries
That’s why we have no oxide zones, oh what a dirty trick!

Chorus
Damn the Glaciers! Damn the Glaciers!
They scraped our rocks away and that is why we say
Damn the Glaciers! Damn the Glaciers!
That’s why we have no weathered rocks today

The ice sheets ground the surface bare and piled up the mess
As drumlins, as eskers and moraines
It happens every million years or maybe two or three
Just as oxidation starts, an ice age comes again

Chorus

Secondary minerals are scarce up in the north
Even tiny crystals are quite rare
Sulphates and chromates are difficult to find
‘Cause the ice sheets came and scraped us bare

Chorus

Oh, sure we have our sulphides, they are magnificent
They outcrop on the surface of the land
That’s why we have no phosphates of the secondary kind
They’ve all been ground by ice to clay and sand

Chorus

Vanadinates, molybdates too
Some arsenates for me and you
Some secondaries would be nice
If it wasn’t for that stupid ice!

Damn them! Damn Them! Damn Them! Damn Them! Damn Them!

Chorus

Agate Lickers

by David K. Joyce and Robert T. Downs

David K.J –Harmonica and Vocals, David Woodhead –Electric Bass

There are lots of characters in the mining and minerals worlds! They all have their particular interest and pursue them with passion, often oblivious to the scrutiny of others. Here is a little ditty making fun of some of the characters!

Look at them agate lickers way down south
Stickin’ they agates in they mouths
Look at them agate lickers. Ain’t they cool?
Cover they rocks with lots of drool
Lots of drool! Ain’t they cool?!
Look at them agate Lickers way down south
Stickin’ they agates in they mouths!

Look at them micro-mounters way out west
They like tiny little rocks the best
They go looking for teeny rocks-es
Stick them all in plastic boxes!
Teeny rocks-es in plastic boxes?!
Look at them micro-mounters way out west
They like teeny little rocks the best!

Look at them rock pickers way up north
Swingin’ they hammers back and forth
Looking for rocks near and far
Bring home rocks the size of cars!
Near and far, the size of cars?!
Look at them rock pickers way up north
Swingin’ they hammers back and forth!

Look at them dealers way out east
Charge the most and pay the least
Just ask George cause he confessed
He sells the crap and keeps the best!
He confessed he keeps the best?!
Look at them dealers way out east
Charge the most and pay the least!

Diggin' in a Hole

David K. J. -lead vocals and guitar; David Woodhead –electric bass,Geoff Sommers –mandolin; Carol Teal, and Jason Laprade –harmony vocals

Mineral collecting, in the field, is not the cleanest of activities but some types of collecting are just REALLY dirty! Weathered calcite vein-dykes, gossans, clays! This fellow has encountered some dirty digging...

Chorus:
Diggin’ in a hole
Diggin’ in a hole
Feeling like a mole
Diggin’ in a hole

Filthiest hole I’ve seen, wrecked another shirt
Another pair of blue jeans shot, pseudomorphed to dirt
Impossible to dig with any sense of clean
Who cares if I can find a hand-sized tourmaline?

Chorus

The going’s tough down here in this root-filled hole
I hope there’s something here besides amphibole!
You find ‘em in the dirt, you pry ‘em off the wall
Sometimes there’s a lot, sometimes none at all

Chorus

Down below the water table it all turns to mud
Everything you touch is covered with crud
Hope I’ll be rewarded, tonight when I’m headin’ back
I’ll have a foot long apatite and a zircon in my pack

Chorus

Garnets are exciting, Quartz is cool
So I’ll need an arsenal, every kind of tool
I’ll probably skin my knuckles, cut my finger tips
They should all be healed up by the next collecting trip

Chorus
Chorus

Highway 17

David K.J. guitar and vocals; Carol Teal, harmony vocals, Trevor Mills, electric bass

Highway 17 cuts across northern Ontario and has been the main thoroughfare to and from the myriad of gold mines throughout the north for years. This song attempts to chronicle some of the comings and goings, as well as good times and tough times of the people and communities around those mines.

Scale and muck, drill and blast another perfect round
Another shift has passed working underground
My partner and me work so well, we’ll go and have a beer
We’ve worked the drift together now for nigh on thirteen years.
It’ll be tough to split and go our separate ways
Tabernac the money’s gone! Happens every pay.
I’ll find a mine in a place I’ve never been
Load the car, hit the road, down Highway 17.

Chorus:
The past is a voice that cries ”Where is it that you’ve been?”
I know that my future lies down Highway 17.

Dishes are done, beds are made, kids off to the bus
Stop for coffee with my friend, long time friends the two of us
My old man’s underground, six feet down, I’m all alone
Hit by loose from the back, big as his headstone
When we came to town, we were riding high
Lots of gold and lots of work. When I’m alone I always cry
When we came to town, we were the king and queen
Now I’m riding on this Greyhound down Highway 17

Chorus

They arrive from east and west, they come to find the gold
Nothing stops them, not the flies, not the muskeg, not the cold
They mine the worthy veins in their shafts deep in the rock
The high grade moves from face to mill around the clock
The money moves from rock to mint into our open hands
To the stores, the banks, mattresses and coffee cans
Just like us when we’re through, when the veins are picked clean
The money moves on down the road, down highway 17

Chorus

Gold is Where You Find It

David K.J. –lead vocals; Wendell Ferguson –lead guitar; David Woodhead –electric bass; Carol Teal –harmony vocals

Somehow, gold has captured the imaginations and energies of mankind for centuries. So many people have searched for the elusive metal. In fact, gold is widely spread but rarely in significant amounts. It is difficult to find and everybody has theories on why it is where it is, or where it is not. It often turns up when nobody is expecting to find it! Thus the old saying “Gold is where you find it!”...

Chorus:
Gold is where you find it
Gold was where it was
There’s a mystery behind it
It’s there… just because

Geologists have their theories for where the gold might be
The miner has his duty to try to set it free
Prospectors have their reasons for scratching in the earth
It falls upon humanity to somehow give gold worth

CHORUS

Continental movements cause un-measurable convections
That push hydrothermal fluids in improbable directions
Emplaced as fluid quartz veins throughout the planet’s crust
Moved up to the surface by each faulting thrust

CHORUS

Most quartz disappoints us as barren, worthless veins
Some can have a little gold, a tease to search again
Sometimes, on occasion, when moon and stars align
We find a hidden lode of gold, worthy of a mine

Apply creative science, a little bit of art
A healthy dose of courage, some luck will play a part
You need imagination, positivity in spades
Mines are rarely stumbled on, mines are usually made

CHORUS

Crystal Systems

David K. Joyce -Vocals and guitar, Geoff Somers –mandolin; Carol Teal and Rosemary Phelan –harmony vocals

David K. J. –guitar and lead vocals; David Woodhead –electric bass;
Carol Teal and Rosemary Phelan –harmony vocals

There are six major crystal systems that, along with their subordinate classes outline the various symmetries that minerals crystallize in. Personally, I am strongly drawn to the Isometric System, as you can tell from this song!

Isometric minerals are easy to adore
A visual geometric symphony
Simple, succinct and understandable
Equal axes at 90 degrees
Equal axes at 90 degrees

There’s something truly special about a cube
An octahedron truly is so classy
The pyritohedron is so cute
The tetrahexahedron is just sassy
The tetrahexahedron is just sassy

The dodecahedron is so cool
Parallelograms knock off my socks
Trapezohedrons make me drool
The Isometric system really rocks
The Isometric system really rocks

Take the orthorhombic system, please
Its axes disproportionate and long
Tetragonal is just a little tease
So close to isometric but so wrong
So close to isometric but so wrong

The triclinic system’s high on crack
A single point defines the symmetry
Everything about it’s out of whack
With faces all askew and running free
With faces all askew and running free

The pinacoid, the pinacoid is truly a disgrace
The pedion; it really is a curse
The dome and the disphenoid are ridiculous
With twinning, they only become worse

The hexagonal system is just silly
Its axes are cause for consternation
Equal axes at sixty degrees... geez!
Sure to cause aesthetic constipation
Sure to cause aesthetic constipation

Don’t get me started on the monoclinic
Crystals all lopsided and uneven
Who could think of symmetry like that?
It must be a mistake, I’m believin’
It must be a mistake, I’m believin’

Isometric minerals are easy to adore
A visual geometric symphony
Simple, succinct and understandable
Equal axes at 90 degrees
Equal axes at 90 degrees
Equal axes at 90 degrees

The Mineral Dealer

David K.J. –lead vocals and guitar; David Woodhead –electric bass; Wendell Ferguson –lead guitar; Rosemary Phelan and Carol Teal –harmony vocals

We all know mineral dealers! For some of us, they are an important conduit for acquisition of new specimens for our collections. They are our friends, colleagues, competitors and business acquaintances, all at the same time. Nice to “take the mickey out of them” once in a while...

Oh, the dealer, moves from show to show
Across the country, their minerals in tow
It’s tough to make their money flogging rocks across the land
Reach out to help your dealer with some money in your hand...

Pity the dealer, setup, tear down again
Aching muscles, in the heat and in the rain
Running up the mileage on their beat-up cars and vans
So hard on their bodies, every woman and man….

Chorus;
Oh the dealer, the trouble and the strife
Oh the dealer, they have the toughest life

It’s so stressful, the money that they make
Weighs on their conscience, huge profits that they take
At the end of day, they eat the finest foods and wines
It’s a way to ease the guilt that plays upon their minds…

Chorus

Pity the dealer, they have to keep the best
Oh, the dealer, sells the seconds to the rest
The guiltiness weighs heavy, the burden is immense
Their bank accounts are shocking, the self-loathing is intense...

Chorus

Bridge
Their mansion back home is a refuge for their souls,
And a drive out in the Cadillac partially consoles
Fondling their treasures, alone down in the vault
They are still just people, their wealth is not their fault...

Pity the dealer, What will the market bear?
Oh, the dealer, what price is really fair?
Plagued by bulging pockets, in their personal Hell
Stuck with high priced specimens that will never sell…

Chorus

Hug a dealer, they’ve really got it rough
Encourage them, for their lot in life is tough
It’ll take a lifetime to sell us our selection
For ten cents on the dollar, they’ll buy back our collection...

Chorus
Chorus

Miner's Home

David K.J. –lead vocals and guitar; Carol Teal –mandolin and harmony vocals; Dennis Pendrith –electric bass

There is a tavern in Cobalt, Ontario called the “Miner’s Home Tavern” or the ‘Miner’s Tavern”. When I went to Mining School at Haileybury, a town just a few miles from Cobalt, we frequented the Miner’s Home to play shuffleboard and partake in a few glasses of draft beer. The miners would sit, sip and tell their stories of underground mining adventures, blasting and machines with humour and bravado. Some people say there was more ore mined in the stories in that tavern than were ever mined in the mines of the area…

Chorus:
The tavern’s filled with lots of guys
Telling tales and swapping lies.
Only the truth is told today
Of giant blasts and bonus pay
Where the drifts are long, the stopes are big
The men are strong but the gold they dig
Is poured from a jug so cool and clear
Washes away the sweat and fear
The stories all improve with beer
Down at the Miner’s Home

In the days of the hard rock mining men
The drill was mightier than the pen
A man could live by his arms and back,
Tramming silver down a track
With muscled arms and elbows bent
They’d drill, blast, muck and then
Next day they’d do it all again
Down at the Miner’s Home.

Chorus

They’d talk about the crazy things they’d done
Towns they’d seen, machines they’d run
With each successive jug of draft
They’d go a little deeper in the shaft
There’s Frenchy Jean and Honky Wayne
Jim the Brit and John the Dane
Next day they’d do it all again
Down at the Miners Home

Chorus

I worked at Geco, Kidd and Ross
In the Caribou I was shift boss
Bathurst, Snow and Scottie Gold.
When I hit Val D’Or I was getting’ old
The O’Brien’s where I learned to drill
At Granduc Mine I was almost killed
Now I sit and drink my fill
Down at the Miner’s Home

Chorus

Chorus
Chorus

Glory Hole

David K.J. –lead vocals, guitar; Geoff Sommers –mandolin; Jason Laprade –Dobro; David Woodhead –electric bass;
Carol Teal, Rosemary Phelan, Jason Laprade –harmony vocals

At some old mines, where the orebody outcropped to surface, a common mining practice was to drive a raise up through the middle of the orebody and then blast the ore down into the underground mine workings in order to take advantage of gravity and the ore handling and hoisting capabilities of the mine workings. Such an operation was called a “glory hole” and was very profitable. I have left instructions with my family to throw my ashes down a glory hole at an old mine, up north.

As I travel down this long and twisted road of life
I search for resolution to the turmoil and the strife
There’s one thing that will soothe me bless my weary soul
When I’m done throw my ashes down a glory hole

Chorus:
Glory hole, glory hole
I won’t mind the darkness, I won’t mind the cold
I’ll spend all eternity with silver and with gold
When I’m done throw my ashes down a glory hole

Oh I have known the wondrous love of family and friends
I know I’m not immortal, eventually life ends
As my bones grow tired, time will takes its toll
When I’m done throw my ashes down a glory hole

Chorus

When my life is over I’ll have the final laugh
“Rather here than in the city” will be my epitaph
Cast it in a big bronze plate and bolt it to a knoll
When I’m done throw my ashes down a glory hole

Chorus

When my days are over and when my living’s done
Hopefully, I have lived well and had a little fun
When I pass on to the other side you’ll hear a heavy sigh
Burn me to a crisp, put me in a jar and kiss my ash goodbye

Chorus

Why?

David K.J. –vocals and guitar

There are questions that mineral collectors ask themselves over the years. Issues to be considered. Why? Why? WHY? Here are a few questions...

Why do rocks have to be so heavy?
Do they have to be so dense?
Lifting them is so intense
Why do rocks have to be so pointy?
They always hurt my back
When I put them in my pack
Not to mention what the boulders do because of their inertia
‘Cause if they roll your way, you know they’re going to hurtya
But you have to move them to find that special find
It’s on a certain lump, at the bottom of the dump.
Why do rocks have to be so heavy?

Why do rocks crack the wrong way?
When I hit them with my pick
Off the crystals flick
Examine the matrix from all around
You figure out the grain
The crystals break again
It is certainly humbling to never really know
Think I’ll go and buy my specimens at a show
Then I only have to fight traffic to get there
I’d gladly pay the price to buy something really nice
Why do rocks crack the wrong way?

Others think collectors are all nuts
Spend a day out in the rain
It is kind of insane
Not to mention the mosquitoes and black flies
At nothing will we balk
To find that special rock
Not blazing sun or snow or rain will keep us from the piles
We’ll over come all hardship for a rock that make us smile
A specimen that looks just right from every single angle
That our friends all say is great, that makes them salivate
People think collectors are all nuts