Category: songs

Andy M Stewart 1979

By the clear and the winding streams In the valley of Strathmore
Where my love and I have been Where we’ll wander never more

Chorus:
But if time was a thing man could buy
All the money that I have in store
I would give for one day by her side
In the valley of Strathmore

From the glen of the golden and green I left for a land far away
Where sadness has never been seen Aye, and joy only costs a day’s pay

In Strathmore there’s a long working day For a man with his hands on the plow
But it’s work I’d be happy to do If at night I were lying with you

As I take a long draft from my glass Oh, I’m drinking alone here again
And I try not to think of my lass For the old days will ne’er come again 

Paul Clark 1981

Written for a play called Days of Pride, produced at Stantonbury Theatre

Our great attack had failed, We’d nothing left to give,
The wounded hanging on the wire had little time to live;
The German shells came screaming down to shred them as they lay,
Abandoned in the Valley of the Shadow.

The battle ground that night, Would look as bright as day,
As fairy flares turned blackness into bitter lifeless gray;
The twisted shapes that once were men in senseless patterns lay,
The tenants of the Valley of the Shadow.

The torn and shattered fields, The bits of wire and steel,
No blade of grass or leaf or tree to make the place seem real;
An ancient traveller passing by just couldn’t help but say,
This surely is the Valley of the Shadow.

Let pictures of that scene, Be hung on every wall,
In rooms where governments decide if men should stand or fall;
They’d never go to war again if leaders had their say,
While looking at the Valley of the Shadow. 

Leon Rosselson 1988

"I was a frequent guest at the Vancouver Folk Festival during the 1980s. It was unusual in not having any alcohol or corporate funding and in giving everyone, big and small, equal billing. In 1987, Frankie [Armstrong], Roy [Bailey] and myself were honoured to be given the final spot on the Sunday night main stage concert. I wrote this song for us to sing to close the festival. Anyone who knows Hungarian folk will recognise the tune of the chorus. I'd been carrying it around in my head for thirty years before I found a use for it."

Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/the-voice-that-lives-inside-you

When you’re new in the world, you’ve a dream that is wild,
And they tame you and mold you, ’til one day, behold,
You’re obedient soldiers, commuters, consumers,
Reality rules, and there’s no room for dreamers,
They teach you your place in the obstacle race
With a prize that you chase, always just out of reach,
And you’re urged on by megaphone voices that offer you
Choices that are not your own.

Chorus:
Only listen for the voice that lives inside you;
Like a songbird in a cage, it waits in silence.
Find the key to set it free and soaring skyward;
Now the sky is filled with voices, hear them sing beside you.

When the powers that be in their wisdom decree
That you’re no longer needed to feed the machine,
The wheel turns, you’re dismissed; if you dare to resist,
There are walls, there are laws to confuse you and bruise you.
They’ll label you scroungers and wasters and sponges;
They’ll call you subversives, reds, traitors, and worse.
If you don’t fit the norm, if your ways don’t conform
To the rules, then you’re out of the game.

The way they’ve arranged things, you think you can’t change things;
You’re one, you’re just you; but whatever they do,
Don’t forget to remember, you’re a name not a number,
And no one can think for you, dream for you, speak for you.
Don’t let them bind you down, don’t let them grind you down,
Don’t let them mold you, ’til one day, behold,
You’re obedient tools, you’re commuters, consumers,
And reality rules out your dreams. 

Robert W. Service / David Perry 1993

Ian Robb: "My late Friends of Fiddler's Green bandmate David Parry was a big fan of Scots-Canadian ballad poet Robert W. Service, and he set a fair number of Service's poems to music, releasing them on a wonderful CD entitled "The Man from Eldorado." This is one of those, and describes the excruciating dilemma faced by a poor family man who is shamed into volunteering to fight in WW1, a war he doesn't believe in."

Ian Robb: https://ianrobb1.bandcamp.com/track/the-volunteer

Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call!
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go let ’em plaster every blighted wall;
‘Ere’s one they won’t stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways,
Them empire-grabbers, fight for them? No fear!
I’ve seen this mess a-coming from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear.
I’ve felt my passion rise and swell,
But…wot the ‘ell, Bill? Wot the hell?

Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes me measly thirty bob a week
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to work that they might spend?
Them in their mansions, me ‘ere in me slum?
No, let ’em fight wot’s something to defend:
But me, I’ve nothing – let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses hard and well,
But…wot the ‘ell, Bill? Wot the hell?

Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missus and the little uns,
Why even I might shout “God save the King”
And take me chances wiv them ‘ungry guns.
But we’ve got three, another on the way;
It’s that what makes me scowl and set me jaw
The wife and nippers, wot of them, I say,
If I get’s knocked out in this blasted war?
Get’s proper busted by a shell,
But…wot the ‘ell, Bill? Wot the hell?

Ah, wot the ‘ell’s the use of all this talk?
Today some boys in blue was passin’ me,
And some of them they ‘ad no legs to walk,
And some of them they ‘ad no eyes to see.
And – well, I couldn’t look ’em in the face,
And so I’m goin’, goin’ to declare
I’m under forty-one, and take me place
To face the music with the lads out there.
A fool you say? Well, perhaps you’re right.
I’ll get no peace until I fight.
I’ve ceased to think; I only know
I’ve gotta go, Bill, gotta go. 

Terry Conway 1988

Last line rewritten by Alex Ellis to make it a little less graphic. Learned from Rowan Lupton.

The banner rides the winds of peace, the pilgrim takes the road
To advertise and civilize, and try to spread the gold
But the cities fall to hatred’s call, the hero smells the flood
To celebrate the nation’s state and dip their hands in blood

Chorus:
And you’ll hear them come around again
Hear the trumpets sound again
Hear the drums resound again
Beneath the walls of Troy

When nations seek to find their friends they first compare their foes
And if the list turns out the same a sour alliance grows
The patriot must be revered, he has no need to hide
But the man of peace is damned unless he’s on the other side

You’ll hear them talk of natural laws and population trends
They’ll set the wise to rationalize and talk of means and ends
They’ll say that man was made to hunt, it’s all part of the game
Or maybe they’ll blame religion if they think it clears their name

Now all the world’s a patchwork quilt, all nations must be free
The hate, the fear, it’s so sincere – it’s all too much for me
Your freedom is the right to war, to plunder and to brag
To genocide and lie with pride and all to show the flag 

Gordon Bok 1977

"I wrote this song while doing the music for a public television documentary on the maritime history of Maine called "Home to the Sea." It became the theme song, with Ann Mayo Muir singing the full version of the song at the end of the film.ÿ If it sounds bitter, remember that the day is late and not the fate of the small fisherman on the Northeast coast looks even darker than it did before.ÿ There's no subsidy here for the "little fellow" - only more paperwork."

The ways of man are ‘passing strange
He buys his freedom and he counts his change
Then he lets the wind his days arrange
And he calls the tide his master.

Chorus:
Oh, the days, oh the days,
Oh, the fine long summer days.
The fish come rolling in the bays
And he swore he’d never leave me.

But the days grow short and the year gets old
And the fish won’t stay where the water’s cold,
And if they’re going to fill the hold
They’ve got to go offshore to find them.

So they go outside on the raving deep
And they pray the Lord their soul to keep
But the waves will roll them all to sleep
And the tide will be their keeper.

Oh, the tide, oh, the tide,
Oh, you dark and you bitter tide.
If I can’t have him by my side,
I guess I have to leave him.

I gave you one, I gave you two:
The best that rotten old boat could do.
You won’t be happy till I give you three,
But I’ll be damned if you’ll get me.

Oh, the tide, oh, the tide,
Oh, you dark and you bitter tide.
If I can’t have him by my side,
The water’s welcome to him.

Ah, Lord, I know that the day will come
When one less boat comes slogging home.
I don’t mind knowing that he’ll be the one,
But I can’t spend my whole life praying.

I gave you one, I have you two:
The best that poor old boat could do;
You’ll have it all before you’re through
Well, I’ve got no more to give you. 

trad 

The Teacups: https://haystackrecords.bandcamp.com/track/the-weary-cutters

Chorus:
Oh, the weary cutters, they’ve taken my laddie from me (x2)

They always come in the night, They never come in the day
They always come in the night, And they steal the laddies away

They’ve shipped him far away foreign, With Nelson all on the salt sea
Oh, the weary cutters, they’ve taken my laddie from me

When I look to the north I look with a tear in my eye
But when I look to the south I see the laddies come by

I’ll give the cutters a shilling, I’ll give the cutters no more
I’ll give the cutters a shilling to fetch my laddie ashore

Oh, the weary cutters, and oh, the weary sea
Oh, the weary cutters, they’ve taken my laddie from me 

trad 

Bert Lloyd wrote in 1958: "In the nineteenth century, this popular street ballad was issued over and over again on broadsheets. An older song, The Green Bed, describing the adventures of a sailor in an uncharitable boarding house, seems to be the parent of Wild Rover." Shortly thereafter, Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl collected it from Sam Larner, and from their book, Luke Kelly of the Dubliners learned it. The Dubliners' version is close to what I've heard sung today, and you can hear the lineage from recordings of Larner, but Larner's version sounds a little more distant from the familiar setting.

I’ve been a wild rover for many’s the year
And I’ve spent all my money on whiskey and beer.
But now I’m returning with gold in great store
And I never will play the wild rover no more

Chorus:
And it’s no, nay, never
No, nay, never, no more
Will I play the wild rover
No, never, no more

I went into an ale-house I used to frequent
And I told the landlady my money was spent.
I asked her for credit, she answered me nay,
Such “a custom like yours I can have any day

I took from my pocket ten sovereigns bright
And the landlady’s eyes opened wide with delight.
She said I’d have whiskey and wines of the best
And the words that she told me were only in jest.

I’ll go home to my parents, confess what I’ve done,
And I’ll ask them to pardon their prodigal son.
And when they’ve caressed me as oft’ times before
Then I never will play the wild rover no more 

The Arrogant Worms

https://arrogantworms1.bandcamp.com/track/wolfe-island-ferry

Chorus:
Oh the Wolfe Island Ferry is a very nice ferry
It’s a very nice ferry it’s the Wolfe Island Ferry
The Wolfe Island Ferry is a very nice ferry
It’s a very nice ferry, it’s the Wolfe Island Ferry!

General Wolfe beat General Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham
And because of this, they liked him an awful lot in Kingston
The town was named Kingston in the county Frontenac
So they spotted an island, and they called it Wolfe Island!

Oh, it’s got a couple highways and a really nice restaurant
Called the “General Wolfe”, and it’s named after General Wolfe
Who won a couple of battles and had an island named after him
It’s a really nice place and a good port to smuggle booze in from the States

Oh, the Wolfe Island Ferry doesn’t carry any wolves
Or any source of animals, except for a couple of seagulls
Who are really lazy, and so they land on the ferry
And that way, they don’t have to fly all the way to Wolfe Island

Oh, the Wolfe Island Ferry doesn’t carry any fairies
Cause fairies, unlike seagulls, don’t really mind the flying
They fly over to Wolfe Island sprinkling fairy dust all over
Except it’s really more like battery acid and it burns your skin until you die 

trad 

Recorded as early as 1961 by Ewan MacColl but all sourced from John Ord's Bothy Songs and Ballads published in Glasgow in 1930, a compilation of collected Scottish songs, but it apparently also appears in the Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection which was collected between 1902-1914. Ord apparently indicates the song is at least as old as 1883. Below is a mashup of the Ewan MacColl, Martin Carthy, and Billy Ross versions with tweaks especially to second verse by Alex Ellis.

O the working man as you can see That is what he was born to be
He’s neither haughty, mean nor proud Nor ever take to things too rude
And he never lives above his means Or begs assistance from his friends
But day and night, through thick and thin He’s working life out to keep life in

Chorus:
No matter friends what e’er befall
The poor folk they must work away
Through frost and snow, and rain and wind
They’re working life out to keep life in

The poor homeless woman that we saw A cardboard sign “God bless” she’s scrawled
A picture sorrowful to see, I’m sure with me you’ll all agree.
What work she finds can’t feed a mouse, Far less to get herself a house,
Though her faith in man’s lost to chagrin She’s working life out to keep life in.

O mischief mine where do you roam When reason called you weren’t at home
If you take cheese from the rat Is he then free to hunt the cat
If free from union’s free from dues Are you free from choice or free to choose
Or free as birds blown by the wind To work life out just to keep life in

But rich men say that we’re to blame And we should hang our heads in shame
While all their dreams of greed they sell The poor they’d leave to rot in hell
And who’s to care when you grow old No chance for you the pot of gold
Still the honest folk we try to win Working life out to keep life in

And though oftentimes the road is hard And hunger’s stalking in your yard
It’s providence in trust we’ll keep The children in their beds shall sleep
But times will change and live to see A better day for you and me
From Peterheid to Gretna Green They work life out to keep life in