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We're Not Who You Think We Are

Certain Songs #368: Dwight Yoakam – “Miner’s Prayer”

November 16, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Dwight_Yoakam_-_Guitars,_Cadillacs
Album: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.
Year: 1986

I came late to the Dwight Yoakam party. Despite the fact that he was making music from the very start that I would have loved had I bothered to listen, I’ll admit that I didn’t really pay attention him until a decade into his career.

And despite the fact that I think that he’s been pretty consistently great throughout his career and is probably in the conversation for best Country artist ever, I still think that I underrate him.

A prime example is “Miner’s Prayer,” an all-acoustic number from his first album, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc. It’s just Dwight and his guitar ace, Pete Anderson, playing off each other — the sound they make together had to have influenced Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992 — as he sings:

When the whistle blows each morning
And I walk down in that cold, dark mine
I say a prayer to my dear Savior
Please let me see the sunshine one more time

When oh when will it be over
When will I lay these burdens down
And when I die, dear Lord in Heaven
Please take my soul from ‘neath that cold dark ground

With Dwight singing lyric in his high lonesome tenor using a melody that is so instantly familiar, you know you must have heard it before, you’d be excused if you assumed that “Miner’s Prayer” is a cover from the mid-1900s, if not earlier.

But it ain’t, it was a brand-new original from a brand-new major talent. I just didn’t know it at the time. But I eventually I got there.

“Miner’s Prayer”

“Miner’s Prayer” live at Farm Aid, 1986

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Cadillacs, Dwight Yoakam, Etc. Etc., Guitars, Miner's Prayer

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2580: Supertramp – “Even in the Quietest Moments”
  • Certain Songs #2579: Supertramp – “Bloody Well Right”
  • Certain Songs #2578: Supergrass – “Sun Hits The Sky”
  • Certain Songs #2577: Supergrass – “Alright”
  • Certain Songs #2576: Superchunk – “If You’re Not Dark”

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