The song “Outdoor Miner” taken from the Wire album Chairs Missing is a short, sharp pop artefact. It’s also one of those touchstone songs that everyone seems to have a cover version of, wearing their post-punk hearts on their sleeves.
The actual “serpentine miner” reference in the song is to a fly larva that is noted as the most cosmopolitan species of the leaf miner family, and creates burrows in the leaves they feed on/mine (see pic).
Wire: Outdoor Miner (long version)
