Category: songs

Alan Doyle 1997

S‚an McCann 

Great Big Sea: Great Big Sea – Ordinary Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcjBU8zbdY

I’ve got a smile on my face, and I’ve got four walls around me I’ve got the sun in the sky, all the water surround me, oh you know Yeah, I’ll win now but sometimes I’ll lose I’ve been battered, but I never bruise It’s not so bad Chorus: And I say way-hey-hey, it’s just an ordinary day And it’s all your state of mind At the end of the day, you’ve just got to say It’s all right Janie sings on the corner, what keeps her from dying? Let them say what they want, she won’t stop trying, oh you know She might stumble, if they push her ’round She might fall, but she’ll never lie down It’s not so bad In this beautiful life, there’s always some sorrow And it’s a double-edged knife, but there’s always tomorrow, oh you know It’s up to you now if you sink or swim Just keep the faith and your ship will come in It’s not so bad

 

 

trad 

 

West was apparently a real boarding-house keeper in Liverpool who would “train” inexperienced farmers and mill-hands to be sailors pretty much as described in the song. Bert Lloyd wrote in 1957 that West was active in the “latter days of sail” and one source says 1870s.

Gallimaufry

http://ellisnasqc.quickconnect.to/as/sharing/w8B3S30x/L011c2ljL0dhbGxpbWF1ZnJ5L1BsYWNlcyBMZWZ0IHRvIEdvLzExIFBhZGR5IFdlc3QubXAz

As I went walkin’ down London Road, I come to Paddy West’s house, He gave me a meal of American hash and he said it was Liverpool scouse, He said, “There’s a ship, she’s wantin’ hands, and on her you must sign, Oh, the mate’s a bastard, the bosun’s worse, but she will suit you fine.” Chorus: So take off your dungaree jacket, and give yourselves a rest, And we’ll think on them cold nor’westers that we had at Paddy West’s. And it’s when the meal was over, boys, the wind began to blow. Paddy sends me to the attic, the main-royal for to stow, But when I got to the attic, why, no main-royal could I find, So I turned myself ’round to the window, boys, and I furled the window blind. Now Paddy he calls all hands on deck, their stations for to man. And his wife she stood in the doorway with a bucket in her hand; Paddy sings out, “Now let ‘er rip!” and she flings the water our way, Sayin’, “Clew in the fore t’gan’sl, boys, she’s takin’ in the spray!” Now that seein’ we’re bound for the south’ard, boys, to Frisco we was bound; Paddy he calls for a length of rope, and he lays it on the ground, We all stepped over, and back again, and he says to me, “That’s fine, Now if ever they ask were you ever at sea you can say you crossed the line.” And there’s one more thing that you must do before you sail away, Just step around the table, boys, where the bullock’s horn do lay. And if ever they ask, “Was you ever at sea?” you can say, “Ten times ’round the Horn.” And Bejesus but I’m an old sailor man since the day that I were born.

 

 

Lotus Dickey 

 

Becky & Nicole: https://beckyandnicole.bandcamp.com/track/pair-in-a-paradise

https://beckyandnicole.bandcamp.com/track/pair-in-a-paradise

Heaven and Earth by the Lord were created, Sun and the moon and the stars so elated, Two in a garden, a beautifully mated Pair in a Paradise, bare there were they. Chorus: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, (x3) Pair in a Paradise, bare there were they. Fruit-bearing trees in that garden were planted, Nothing was lacking, no nothing was scanted; Perfect for two, a completely enchanted Pair in a paradise, bare there were they. Of all the fruit growing there they’d partaken Saving for one that the Lord had forbade them Lest they be a-dying, that man and maiden, Pair in a paradise, bare there were they. Then in the garden there spoke an advisor: “Why doth thou listen to all of these lies for? Eat,” said the serpent, “to be but the wiser.” Pair in a paradise, bare there were they. Satan the serpent was oh so deceiving. Eve though his cunning was led to believing; Ate, as did Adam, soon to be a-grieving, Pair in a paradise, bare there were they. Hiding in shame at a growing awareness There of their nakedness, there of their bareness, Clothed by the Lord, then, a sadly embarrassed Pair in a paradise, bare there were they. Satan in Eden then had his beginning, Sought with the lie o’er the Lord to be winning, Death brought instead to the world through a sinning Pair in a paradise, bare there were they.

 

 

Leon Rosselson 1966

 

Written following the Aberfan disaster of 1966 outside Cardiff where a coal mine waste tip collapsed and avalanched slurry into town, killing 109 children at Pantglas Junior School and 35 others. Rosselson wrote “I like playing fantasy games inventing the newspaper headlines I’d most like to see. ‘Lord Robens Buried by Slag Heap’ would be rather pleasing.” Robens was chairman of the National Coal Board in 1966 and showed a degree of indifference to the disaster. He proceeded to tell lies about it to the press before raiding the public disaster funds to cover the Coal Board’s own clean-up costs.

Martin Simpson & the Wilson Family: https://towerseyfestival.bandcamp.com/track/palaces-of-gold

https://towerseyfestival.bandcamp.com/track/palaces-of-gold

If the sons of company directors And judges’ private daughters Had to go to school in a slum school Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry With a view onto slag heaps and stagnant pools Had to file through corridors greyed with age And play in a crackpot concrete cage Chorus Buttons would be pressed Rules would be broken Strings would be pulled And magic words spoken Invisible fingers would mould Palaces of gold If prime ministers and advertising executives Royal personages and bank managers’ wives Had to live out their lives in dank rooms Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs Had to bring up their children and watch them grow In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow I’m not suggesting any sort of a plot Everyone knows there’s not But you unborn millions might like to be warned That if you don’t want to be buried alive by slag heaps Pitfalls and damp walls and rat traps and dead streets Arrange to be democratically born The son of a company director Or a judge’s fine and private daughter

 

 

Jim Page 2003

 

Christy Moore changed a lot of the lyrics with Page’s blessing for his 2024 recording; this is Moore’s version with a chorus Page recorded in 2024 that differs from his original 2003 chorus. Christy Moore: Palestine, Jim Page: Palestine

Let me tell you a story, I’ll be quick as I can Terrible news from the Holy Land Pictures of Children etched in my mind Buried in the rubble on the firing line The Jews and The Arabs lived one and the same A thousand years then the Zionists came Came like a river, came like a flood Al Nakba was written on the wall in blood Chorus: O Palestine, going home sometime Talk about settlers from far away Talk about dollars from the USA Talk about blast bombs, the bullets and the lead The shadow of the Jackboot hanging over your head What can you do when they demolish your home Olive Trees buried and gone Do you dare to resist? Stand on the road with a rock in your fist They talk about peace like it’s a moral obligation There’ll never be peace under occupation Talk about Talks, to the beat of the drum 70 years Nakba rolls on We need to talk about the friends that we endorse The rockets and the tanks and the warships they disperse No wonder it seems to be An undemocratic version of Democracy Let me tell you a story, I’ll be quick as I can There’s terrible news from the Holy Land

 

 

trad 

 

Recorded by the Wilson Family in 1991 as “Beggar’s Carol”.

May good luck attend this house and happiness and laughter Love to master and to maid, and all that follow after. Chorus: Let every pan that you have got, Be full of pancakes piping hot, Pancakes hot! Pancakes hot! Pancakes hot! We like pancakes from the pot! Mistress give to us we beg, of all the cakes you cannot eat We will lick your dishes clean, for cakes to us are more than meat. We will play upon the drum, a merry tune we heard in France If you will but give us cakes, to warm our legs so we may dance.

 

 

Hedy West 1976

 

To the tune of “Palms of Victory”

Magpie Arc: https://themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/track/pans-of-biscuits

https://themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/track/pans-of-biscuits

I saw an honest farmer His back was bending low He’s picking out his cotton As fast as he could go He piled it in the railpen Until the merchant came That he might attach his cotton That he should pay his claim Chorus (x2): It’s pans of biscuits, Bowls of gravy Pans of biscuits We shall have I saw him in the evening His back was against the tree His poor old head was aching He rolled upon his knee “I’ll be compelled to go home Or surely I will die! My head is commenced aching” I heard the farmer cry “I’ve toiled all my lifetime And still I find I’m poor Without an education My children’s left my door” I saw an honest farmer His back was bending low He’s picking out his cotton As fast as he could go

 

 

John Prine 1971

 

About coal strip mining in Appalachia. The town of Paradise, KY was demolished in 1967 so TVA’s coal plant could expand. In 2020 it was converted to a natural gas plant.

When I was a child my family would travel Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered So many times that my memories are worn Chorus And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Down by the Green River where Paradise lay Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols But empty pop bottles was all we would kill Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’ Just five miles away from wherever I am

 

 

Colin Cater 2000

 

Cater writes on Mudcat: “Idea derives from who knows when – I got it from Ratlebone and Ploughjack?Song took several years to develop – chorus came first then the verses a couple of years later.”

Chorus Only once a year, Penny for the Ploughboy To keep us in good cheer and multiply the grain Only once a year, Penny for the Ploughboy Speed the plough until the year turns round again At the end of the year all the fields were brown in the days when I was young With corn in the barns, frost in the ground and never a green shoot sprung Then the ploughmen came with hobnailed boots and the Molly dance rich and slow And with magical plays and songs of the land they bade the corn to grow Then they ploughed and sowed and harrowed him in and the rain from heaven did fall The wind did blow and the sun did shine and he soon grew amazing tall When the corn was ripened the harvesters came and the barns and the breweries rang And when all was safely gathered in they raised their voice and sang. But now the seasons are all changed round, a slave to the great machines. The fields are ploughed in the high summer time, by the turn of the year they’re green Gone are the trades, the horses, the families that followed the seasons along And the old pubs close because they can’t resound to the fiddle or a country song But there’s strength in the plays, the dances and songs that have lasted a thousand years There’s strength in barley malt and hops brewed into a country beer It puts a spring in the step of an old straw bear, makes the dancer leap for the skies And when the Molly gangs come to speed the plough they’ll raise their glass and cry.

 

 

Jess Arrowsmith 2008

 

Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/pilgrimage

https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/pilgrimage

Where are they going, your sons and daughters, where are they going with games and fun?? Chorus Under the moon, over and done, under the moon and the rising sun We cannot go back, so says everyone. They’re going for soldiers, sons and daughters, going to fight and carry a gun? Why are they going, your sons and daughters, why are they going with fife and drum?? They’re off to the fighting, sons and daughters, fighting a war that cannot be won? Will they come back, your sons and daughters, will they come back while they’re still young?? Only a few of them, sons and daughters, passage of death will wait for none?