Santa Bárbara bendita


Santa Bárbara is a traditional song of the Asturian coal miners.

The song

The deeply emotional lyrics and the sorrowful and heroic score, usually sung a cappella by a male choir, turned the song into a symbol of Asturian coal mining and of mining in general. Sometimes used as a working class anthem, the hymn was widely used during the Asturian miners uprising of 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War.
The lyrics describe the painful returning home of a miner, covered in the blood of his fellow miners, who tells his wife of a mining accident in the famous Asturian mine known as Pozu Maria Luisa.

Coal mining, which is present in Asturias since the 18th century having a pivotal role in the historical economic activity of the region, is known as a very dangerous activity. Historically, hundreds of miners have died in the mines of Asturias and deadly mining accidents were sadly common in the miner population.
Santa Bárbara is nowadays considered to be an important piece of Asturian traditional music and is included prominently in the Asturian folk music repertoire. The song is also often used in funerals, tributes and memorials.

Original Asturian version

English translation

A last couplet, sometimes omitted because of non politically correct profanity runs likewise
Cago en los capataces
Arrivistas y esquiroles
Accionistas y esquiroles
I Crap on the foremen
hustlers and union scabs
And the shareholders and unions scabs too