Category: songs

Stan Rogers 

 

Stan Rogers: The Field Behind the Plow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddBI1WvqgeU

Watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows Feel the trickle in your clothes, blow the dusk cake from your nose And hear the tractor’s steady roar, O you can’t stop now There’s a quarter section more or less to go And it figures that the rain takes it’s own sweet time You can watch it come for miles, but you guess you’ve got a while Ease the throttle out a hair, every rod’s a gain There’s victory in every quarter mile Poor old Kuzyk down the road The heartache, hail and hoppers got him down He gave it up and went to town And Emmett Pierce, the other day took a heart attack and died at 42 You could see it comin’ on, ‘cuz he worked as hard as you Well in an hour, maybe more, you’ll be wet clear through The air is cooler now, pull your hat brim further down And watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows Put another season’s promise in the ground And if the harvest’s any good, the money might just cover all the loans You’ve mortgaged all you own Buy the kids a winter coat, take the wife back east for Christmas if you can All summer she hangs on when you’re so tied to the land For the good times come and go, but at least there’s rain So this won’t be barren ground when September comes around And watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows Put another season’s promise in the ground Watch the field behind the plow, turn to straight rows Put another season’s promise in the ground

 

 

Nancy Kerr 2013

 

“Written on a stirring spring morning in a city garden, remembering older summers and tunes played in wild places. A fiftieth birthday present for our dear friend Steve Hunt.”

The Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/fifty-verses

https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/fifty-verses

Chorus: See how the season is starting something The swift unearthing of a summer long And thrifty voices do greet the dawning With fifty verses of a longer song On yonder alder the red wood growing As he grows older does grow more grand His bark and berries do soothe the sorrows Of every woman and every man The sea remembers on an eve in August Our driftwood fire like a burning man We blew the embers and in the morning Had fishes flying into the pan The stars are burning to light the evening And a clifftop morning will breeze along Just fifty turnings in a longer living Just fifty verses of a longer song

 

 

Archie Fisher 1977?

 

“inspired by a pair of rusting decommissioned trawlers off Scrabster Harbour. The death of a boat is the first casualty in the decline of a fishing community. This song is dedicated to all of the hardy fisherfolk at sea and ashore.”

Now it’s three long years since we made her pay Sing “Haul away”, my laddie O And the owners say that she’d had her day And sing “Haul away”, my laddie O So heave away for the final trawl It’s an easy pull, for the catch is small Then’s stow your gear, lads, and batten down And I’ll take the wheel, lads, and I’ll turn her ’round And we’ll join the Venture and the Morning Star Riding high and empty towards the bar For I’d rather beach her on the Skerry Rock Than to see her torched in the breaker’s dock And when I die you can stow me down In her rusty hold, where the breakers pound Then I’d make the haven of Fiddlers Green Where the grub is good and the bunks are clean For I’ve fished a lifetime, boy and man And the final trawl scarcely makes a cran

 

 

trad 

 

Bob Walser: Fire Down Below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOJxOSEdf2g

I thought I heard our old man say, Fire down below-O-O-O-O low, boys Fire down below! You can go ashore and get your pay. I don’t care what the captain say, Two pound ten won’t pay my way, I’ll take my clothes and run away, I’ll run away at the break of day, Because I can no longer stay, I’ll go to my girl round ‘Frisco Bay; I know very well ’tis with me she will stay. Because she know I have twelve months pay, And we’ll go down to the Midway Plasances, I thought I heard our captain say, You can go ashore and get your pay!

 

 

Hazel Dickens 1950s

 

Windborne: https://windborne.bandcamp.com/track/fire-in-the-hole

https://windborne.bandcamp.com/track/fire-in-the-hole

You can tell them in the country, tell them in the town Miners down in Mingo laid their shovels down we won’t pull another pillar, load another ton or lift another finger until the union we have won Chorus: Stand up boys, let the bosses know Turn your buckets over, turn your lanterns low There’s fire in our hearts and fire in our soul but there ain’t gonna be no fire in the hole Daddy died a miner and grandpa he did too, I’ll bet this coal will kill me before my working days is through And a hole this dark and dirty an early grave I find And I plan to make a union for the ones I leave behind

 

 

Stan Rogers 1978

 

“This song was first performed in Sylvia Tyson’s living room at a musical Christmas party that was taped for broadcast on CBC Radio’s late, lamented and sadly missed ‘Touch the Earth’. Since we did this album we haven’t played this song on stage very often. Garnet says, with some justification, that it is too much of a downer. Definitely a three-hankie song.”

This day a year ago, he was rolling in the snow With a younger brother in his father’s yard Christmas break, a time for touching home, The heart of all he’d known And leaving was so hard Three thousand miles away, Now he’s working Christmas Day Making double time for the minding of the store Well he always said, he’d make it on his own He’s spending Christmas Eve alone First Christmas away from home She’s standing by the train station, Pan-handling for change Four more dollars buys a decent meal and a room Looks like the Sally Ann place after all, In a crowded sleeping hall That echoes like a tomb But it’s warm and clean and free, And there are worse places to be At least it means no beating from her Dad And if she cries because it’s Christmas Day She hopes that it won’t show First Christmas away from home In the apartment stands a tree, And it looks so small and bare Not like it was meant to be, Golden angel on the top It’s not that same old silver star, You wanted for your own First Christmas away from home In the morning, they get prayers, Then it’s crafts and tea downstairs Then another meal back in his little room Hoping maybe that “the boys” Will think to phone before the day is gone Well, it’s best they do it soon When the “old girl” passed away, He fell apart more every day Each had always kept the other pretty well But the kids all said the nursing home was best Cause he couldn’t live alone First Christmas away from home In the common room they’ve got the biggest tree And it’s huge and cold and lifeless Not like it ought to be, And the lit-up flashing Santa Claus on top It’s not that same old silver star, You once made for your own First Christmas away from home

 

 

Stan Rogers 

 

“The last song written for this particular album. ‘The Citadel’ is, of course, Citadel Hill in Halifax, and the ship with ‘her picture on a dime’ is, of course, the Bluenose. A pox on all those who tear down the old merely to make way for something new.”

It was in the spring this year of grace, with new life pushing through That I looked from the citadel down to the narrows and asked what it’s coming to I saw Upper Canadian concrete and glass right down to the water line And I heard an old song down on Fisherman’s Wharf Can I sing it just one time With half-closed eyes against the sun, for the warm wind giving thank I dreamed of the years of the deep-laden schooners thrashing home from the Grand Banks The last lies done in the harbour sun with her picture on a dime I have heard an old song down on Fisherman’s Wharf, can I sing it just one time And haul away and heave her home, this song is heard no more No boats to sing them for, no sails to sing them for There rises now a single tide of tourists passing through We traded old ways for the new Old ways for the new Old ways for the new For the new Now you ask “What’s this romantic boy, Who laments what’s done and gone?” There was no romance on a cold winter ocean and the gale sang an awful song But my fathers knew of wind and tide, and my blood is Maritime And I heard an old song down on Fisherman’s Wharf Can I sing it just one time

 

 

Hedy West 1962

 

Hedy West: 500 Miles By Hedy West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwnNdqpCF8Q

If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone, You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles. Hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles. You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles. If my honey said so, I’d railroad no more, I’d sidetrack my engine and go home. And go home, and go home, and go home, and go home. I’d sidetrack my engine and go home. Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord, I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord, I’m five hundred miles away from home. I told my little Ella, just as plain as I could tell her That she’d better come along and go with me. My clothes are all worm and my shoes are all torn, Lord, I can’t make a livin’ this a-way. If this train runs on right, I’ll be home tomorrow night, For I’m coming down the line on Number Nine. Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name, Lord, I can’t go back home this a-way. If you miss the train I’m on, You will know that I am gone You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

 

 

Nancy Kerr 2010

 

Kerr says that as she transitioned from playing traditional music to writing her own material, she sought a balance between more trad-sounding songs and more poppy songs, which she feels this is.

Nancy Kerr & James Fagan: https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/flower-pickers-song

https://kerrfagan.bandcamp.com/track/flower-pickers-song

A bunch of flowers and a sore half hour Before these seedling sunflowers see me out of here Another day by the grey highway The fairest flowers fade my dear A clutch of red petals that hangs it head The way you did the day we shared our parting tears An hour or two quickened by dreams of you The fairest flowers fade my dear Chorus: Silver sand trickling through my hand And other people trade those feeble alibis Another sky where the free birds fly The fairest flowers fade my dear A splash of blue cracking the sky in two A thunder train that tracks my spirits out of here A cloud of rain seeding my dreams in vain The fairest flowers fade my dear A nest of leaves, rustling memories The offerings we bought and lived and laid in here A hutch of souls, huddled like Russian dolls The fairest flowers fade my dear

 

 

George Papavgeris 2002

 

“inspired by the well-known 70’s picture of the young hippy lass putting a flower into the muzzle of a soldier’s gun. Young ideals so often – unfortunately – get watered down as one grows older.”

Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns? Dried up and pressed inside a frame, they never get a second glance. The love that we would banish war with, on bombed out streets now naked stands. Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns? Where is the innocence of youth, the stars that once were in our eyes When did we learn to cover truth with our excuses and our lies? When did our ideals falter? Tell me, when did we change our plans? Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns? Our lives from others we have learned to separate From evil we avert our eyes. More often war it is, and not love that we make And all the time we compromise. We used to turn the other cheek, but now we turn our face away. We were the blessed and the meek; our future brighter than the day. But we’ve forgotten Luther’s message; we never ask ourselves, not once: Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns? But we’ve arrived, and as we pat each other’s backs Our principles we now betray And year on year as we progress and we advance, It’s not just hair that’s turning grey… Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns? Where are the lessons we would pass on to our daughters and our sons? And did we ever make a difference? and did we ever stand a chance? Where are the flowers that we put into the muzzles of the guns?