Category: songs

Frank Mansell 1969

Set to "Swaggering Boney" by Charley Yarwood in 1984. Second verse tweaked slightly by Alex Ellis

Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/hedging-song

I’d sooner go hedging than build a stone wall,
All pick up and place it and hope it don’t fall;
When the east wind blows bitter and keen through the trees,
I’d sooner lay blackthorn than dry-wall and freeze.

Chorus:
I’d sooner lay blackthorn, (x3) all the rest of my days.

I’d sooner go hedging-the best thing I know
For anger and anguish and sorrow and woe.
No matter how hurt or insulted I feel,
A tussle with blackthorn will help it to heal.

I’d sooner go hedging than read in a book,
For the more you get thinking the darker things look;
Since study and weeping are hard on the eyes,
I’d sooner lay blackthorn than learn to be wise.

I’d sooner go hedging than seek all my days
For wealth or position or other men’s praise;
Plain bill-hook and axe are the tools of my trade,
Six shillings a chain is the rate I am paid.

I’d sooner go hedging, but come the next spring,
I’ll be up and be gone like a bird on the wing,
And all I shall miss when I reach my new home
Will be hedges to slash at and blackthorn in bloom. 

trad 

Last line tweaked by Molly Ellis

Where have you been all day (Henry my son?)
Where have you been all day (my beloved one?)
Away on the meadow (x2)

Chorus:
Make my bed I’ve a pain in my head, and I want to lie down.

And what did you have to eat…Poison beans

And what colour were those beans…Green and yellow

What will you leave your mother…A woolen vest

What will you leave your father…A watch and chain

What will you leave your brother…A blue suit

What will you leave your children…The sun and moon

What will you leave your sweetheart?…Poison beans

J.E. Carpenter & W.T. Wrighton 1864 

Jeff Warner wrote in 2001: "My parents Frank and Anne Warner got this song from Eleazar Tillett (1875-1968) in 1951. The Tilletts, a fishing family, lived in Wanchese, North Carolina, on the Outer Banks. The song was composed in circa 1864 and went into oral tradition."

Countercurrent: https://countercurrentmusic.bandcamp.com/track/her-bright-smile-skating-on-the-harborfront

It’s been a year since last we met,
We may never meet again.
I have struggled to forget
But the struggle was in vain.
For her voice lives on the breeze,
And her spirit comes at will,
In the midnight on the seas
Her bright smile haunts me still.

I have sailed ‘neath alien skies,
And I’ve trod the desert path,
I have seen the storm arise
Like a giant in his wrath.
Every danger I have known
That a reckless life can fill,
No, her presence is not flown,
Her bright smile haunts me still.

At the first sweet dawn of light,
When I gaze upon the deep,
Her form still greets my sight
While the stars their vigil keep.
When I close my aching eyes
Sweet dreams my memory fill,
And from sleep when I arise
Her bright smile haunts me still.

Robb Johnson 1987

193 passengers & crew (a third of those on board) died in 1987 when the cross-Channel ship went down. Many of those on board had taken advantage of a promotion in The Sun newspaper offering cheap trips to the continent. The ship left harbour with her bow door open, and the sea immediately flooded the vehicle deck; within minutes, she was lying on her side in shallow water. The immediate cause of the capsizing was found to be negligence by the assistant boatswain, who was asleep in his cabin when he should have been closing the bow door. The official inquiry, however, placed more blame on his supervisors and a company culture of poor communication.

Nancy Kerr & James Fagan: https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/the-herald-of-free-enterprise

The sun goes down now ‘cross the sea
We’re homeward bound now, and on the duty-free
The harbour’s quiet and the kids asleep
Tired out from Europe on the cheap

Chorus (x2)
The ship we sail, and the flag she flies
It is the Herald of Free Enterprise

There are no poor now, we all have cars
They’re parked down below now, we took off the stars
On television, if not the sky
The ocean moves us, we don’t ask why

We feel the ship slip out from the land
We’re pleased our trip went just like we planned
We see the lights along the shore
Not the overworked crew, not the open door

And in the cruel dark sea our lives go down
In Zeebrugge Harbour all night we drown
Now the owners grow old while we all die young
With the blue murder stuck in our lungs

And they can salvage our ship up from the bottom of the sea
Recycle pop stars to sing Let it be
Sell lorries for scrap, whitewash the company
But they can make no more money out of me

And each life lost, much loved, much missed
And all of our lives’re on some passenger list
It’s too late for ‘Mayday’, you sink too fast
When profits come first and people’s losses come last 

Si Kahn 1986

The Wilson Family: https://towerseyfestival.bandcamp.com/track/here-is-my-home

Good friends from whom we now must part, (Where are we bound?)
Your hands and voices lift my heart; (Here is my home.)

Chorus:
Come darkness, come light (Where are we bound?)
Come morning, come night (Here is my home.)

For those who work in harmony…Can learn to live in unity…

If we can join ourselves in song…Our hearts will live when we are gone…

The spirit that finds music here…Will sing forever in the air…

trad 

Kind friends and companions, come join me in rhyme
And lift up your voices in chorus with mine
Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may and might never all meet here again

Chorus:
Here’s a health to the company and one to my lass
Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may and might never all meet here again

Here’s a health to the dear lass that I love so well
Her style and her beauty, sure none can excel
She smiles on my countenance and sits on me knee
Sure there’s no one in Erin as happy as we

Our ship lies at harbor, she’s ready to dock
I hope she’s safe landed without any shock
If ever I meet you by land or by sea
I will always remember your kindness to me 

Nick Robertshaw 2004

 

“Big Nick” was the longtime musician for and foreman of the Foggy Bottom Morris Men in Washington, DC.

Nick Robertshaw: Big Nick Robertshaw – Beer That Tastes like Beer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUTcMOYqllA

Chorus Here’s to beer that tastes like beer! An amber glass of wholesome cheer A noble brew that has no peer Beer that Tastes Like Beer! For centuries the brewers craft Produced the most exquisite draft When he brews with what he oughter Barley malt, hops, yeast and water. Let cheese be cheese and bread be bread Don’t serve us soap and cake instead While sausages may cause some fear For goodness sake let beer be beer! Among the most requested favors Please avoid exotic flavors Fruits and nuts and spices queer Have no place in honest beer! Oh stay the bung don’t drive the spile On concoctions rank with adjuncts bile Cornflakes, rice and rats from sewers Fine for cooks but not for brewers So stick with what is plain and true A beery tasting smelling brew Then you’ll earn our highest rating Refreshing yet intoxicating!

 

 

Graeme Miles 1972?

Graeme Wade was a ironstone miner, I’ll have youse all to know
He worked the old shaft iron mines, so many years ago
And he used to tell us stories about his life and times
When he was hewin’ for the ore down in the Cleveland Mines

Chorus:
Hewin’ for the ore, hewin’ for the ore
Hewin’ for the rusty ore
Fifty years or more

They’d talk about conditions and about the rates of pay
How sometimes they were earning less than four and tenner a day
But ask for better conditions were like askin’ for the moon
For the miner paid the piper but the owner called the tune

Sometimes the ore was silver-gray and sometimes rusty brown
Sometimes he’d hewin’ on his back, more often upside-down
But mostly he was all cramped up in a couple of feet of space
With a jagged wall of rock and ore six inches from his face

He talked about the beddy seams as soft as any sand
You didn’t need a pick at all, it just crumbled in your hands
But mostly it was granite-hard and you’d pound and pound away
And the only progress that you made was a couple of yards a day

Now many years have passed and gone since he put his picks away
For Graeme Wade ’tis eighty-six but he’s still got plenty to say
About the days he hewed for ore and about his life and times
When for almost fifty years or so he worked the Cleveland Mines 

trad 

In 1964, J.S. Manifold wrote in the Penguin Australian Song Book "A foc'sle song from the Queensland coast? The original sources were Dick Fizgerald of Charleville, and Jack Wright of Coogee." Included in the 1937 film "Captains Courageous" with different verses but the same tune and chorus and credited to Gus Kahn and Franz Waxman. Bob Coltman wrote on Mudcat in 2009 "the Kahn lyrics are unusually folk-like and delightful-but then, he always did have that knack. As for Waxman's tune, he didn't work very hard for his copyright, changing only one note in the traditional tune." Ed Trinkett in 1972 wrote "In Meredith and Anderson's 'Folksongs of Australia' they report the song to be Portuguese in origin, but fairly widely known in North Queensland, Australia." The "cabbage" verse below is Kahn's, and the final verse is in Manifold, while the first three are from Manifold but sung by most other newer recordings including Arrowsmith's.

Jess Arrowsmith with Faye Hield & Jon Boden from “Off We Go Again”

Oh the crew are asleep and the ocean’s at rest
And I’m singing this song for the one I love best

Chorus:
Hey ho, little fishes, don’t cry, don’t cry (x2)

The ship’s underway and the weather is fine
And the skipper’s down aft hanging out extra line

Little fish when he’s caught he fights like a bull whale
Thrashes the water with his mighty tail

Said Cabbage to fish cake Who lay on a dish
I’m a beautiful cabbage you’re only poor fish

There are fish in the sea, there is no doubt about it,
Just as good as the ones that have ever come out it 

Bill Scott 1972

Australian Scott (1923-2005) was a folklorist, poet, author, songwriter and story teller from Queensland. He told Danny Spooner that "the song had come abound when reflecting on the times he'd watched the rain from the verandah of the 'barracks' of the Goondi sugar mill in 1947."

Chorus:
Hey rain,
Rain coming down, On the cane,
On the roofs of the town.

Rain in my beer and rain in my face
Old Innisfail is a bloody wet place,
Hey rain, hey rain.

Rain in my beer and rain in my grub
And they’ve just fitted anchors to the Gurradunga pub,
Hey rain, hey rain.

I’ve got a Johnson River crocodile livin’ in my ‘fridge
And there’s a bloody great tree down on the Jubilee Bridge,
Hey rain, hey rain.

The monsoon sky’s so dark and big,
There’s an old flying fox in a Moreton Bay Fig,
Hey rain, hey rain.

And a bloke from the west nigh died of fright
The river rose thirty five feet last night,
Hey rain, hey rain.

It’s the worst wet season we’ve ever had,
I’d swim down to Tully but it’s just as bloody bad,
Hey rain, hey rain.