Oxycontin Blues by Steve Earle

Well my daddy worked in the coal mine
‘Till the company shut it down
Then he sat around and drank hisself blind
‘Till we put him back underground
Now nothin’ grows on this mountain
And what’s a poor boy to do?
Except to wander these hills forgotten
With the oxycontin blues

Well I never cared much for whiskey
‘Cause it only made daddy mean
Wrapped a little bit tight they tell me
For the methamphetamine
Then my cousin come up from Knoxville
And he taught me a thing or two
Now I’m headed nowhere but downhill
With the oxycontin blues

Got a dollar bill in my pocket
Got a half a tank in my truck
I’m gonna go and pawn grandma’s locket
Hell, maybe it’ll change my luck
Ain’t nothin gonna be right no how
‘Cause I know I can’t ever lose
This devil that’s draggin’ me down
And the oxycontin blues

Reaction: Steve Earle's song Oxycontin Blues was mentioned in Tuesday's class so I wrote it down on my scratch paper and decided to look it up. My first thought after listening to the song was, "What is Oxycontin exactly?" Therefore, I searched the Internet and found that it is a drug used to relieve moderate to severe pain. After I knew that the entire song made sense. It is about a son who is experiencing a great amount of pain after his father's death due to alcoholism after a mine was closed.