Category: songs

Nancy Kerr 2017

 

A celebration of the women, including her mother, who participated in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp where as many as 70,000 women protested the siting of U.S. nuclear missiles at the British air base in 1981-87. Written for protest song collaboration “Shake the Chains”.

Shake the Chains: Through the Trees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdHnM0_VZ3Y

Chorus: Farewell the fire, likewise the freeze Farewell the ash upon the breeze That carrion day we’ll chase away When peace comes marching through the trees As a child I always knew that on the wind some poison blew That gathering clouds would be our shroud for a falling fire was coming Upon barbed wire around the base our mothers twined our baby lace They linked their arms like lovers’ charms to bind all life in common Now tyrants stir our fear for greed and even fair men pay no heed Behind the trees and below the seas, our rulers hoard their weapons And it is no curse to now begin to see the bones beneath the skin Don’t turn away from judgment day for another storm does threaten Upon barbed wire around the base our mothers twined our baby lace They linked their arms like lovers’ charms to bind all life in common Now see them fly upon the air, my baby’s clothes, my lover’s hair That carrion day I’ll bear away with the strength of many women

 

 

Cindy Kallet 1989

 

Cindy Kallet & Grey Larsen: Tide and the River Rising (Oars)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SldzaQcopk4

Chorus: Come on, get your oars and row, my darling Come on, get your oars and row We’ve got tide and the river rising Come on, get your oars and row Come up on your feet and walk, my baby Rise up on your feet and walk We’ve got arms reaching out to catch you Haul up on those feet and walk In the morning call my name, my darling In the morning call my name We grow old, young; we birth, we die And somehow rearrange Some live and change the world with grace And a vision and a strength of mind Some rise from trouble, some lend a hand And some keep trying to find Watch that little boy go a-walking, my lover And watch him as he learns to run Watch him as he rounds the corner out of sight Then tumbling back in our arms he comes When it’s time to say goodbye, my darling When it’s time to say goodbye We’ll live on in the old and the young ones Dreaming down a quiet line

 

 

Stan Rogers 

 

Stan Rogers: Tiny Fish for Japan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RxaUzXriZE

Where Patterson Creek’s muddy waters run down Past the penny arcades, by the harbour downtown, All the old Turtlebacks rust in the rain Like they never will leave there again. But leave there they will in the hours before dawn, Slip out in the darkness without word or song; For a few more years yet they will work while they can To catch tiny fish for Japan. No white fish or trout here, we leave them alone. The inspectors raise hell if we take any home. What kind of fisherman can’t eat his catch Or call what he’s taken his own? But the plant works three shifts now. There’s plenty of pay. We ship seventeen tons of this garbage each day. If we want to eat fish, then we’ll open a can, And catch tiny fish for Japan. In the Norfolk Hotel over far too much beer, The old guys remember when the water ran clear. No poisons with names that we can’t understand And no tiny fish for Japan So the days run together, each one is the same. And it’s good that the smelt have no lovelier name. It’s all just a job now, we’ll work while we can, To catch tiny fish for Japan. And we’ll catch tiny fish for Japan.

 

 

R¢n n à Snodaigh 1997

 

K¡la: https://klamusic3.bandcamp.com/track/tip-toe

https://klamusic3.bandcamp.com/track/tip-toe

Tip toe through Tireless peace Come and go Leave your toys and sweets When, if I had a place You could visit me Read fairy tales, play Hide and go seek Cliff faces are far too steep Even though we try to Smile through our teeth This surface is not so deep Although we have our Secrets to keep Tightropes are seldom Too weak Say I’ve lost my shoes or I have cold feet Say stranger how did we meet And who will hear us When we start to speak Our shadows are still Out on the street My skin is still as White as a sheet Our time is short and fleet Empty pockets, trick or treat We all need food to eat Friend or foe we all go to sleep Life away from home is Far from cheap So look long now before you leap So soldier please have a seat You’re only alive while Your own heart beats There will always be Wolves among the sheep But what’s left of the Earth will be ploughed By the meek

 

 

Graham Moore 1995

 

Alex Sturbaum: https://alexsturbaum.bandcamp.com/track/tom-paines-bones

https://alexsturbaum.bandcamp.com/track/tom-paines-bones

As I roved out one evening by a river of discontent I chanced to meet with old Tom Paine as running down the road he went. He said, “I can’t stop right now child, King George is after me. He’d have a rope around my throat and hang me on the Liberty Tree.” Chorus: I will dance to Tom Paine’s bones, dance to Tom Paine’s bones Dance in the oldest boots I own to the rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones He said I only talked about freedom and justice for everyone But since the very first word I spoke I’ve been looking down the barrel of a gun. They say I preached revolution, let me say in my defense That all I did wherever I went was to talk a lot of common sense Old Tom Paine, he ran so fast, he left me standing still. And there I was, a piece of paper in my hand, standing at the top of the hill. And it said, “This is ‘The Age of Reason’, these are ‘The Rights of Man’. Kick off religion and monarchy,” it was written there in Tom Paine’s plan. Old Tom Paine, there he lies nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he’s gone or how he fares nobody knows-and nobody cares.

 

 

Emma Azelborn 2023

 

“My friend Penny Gale posted about learning to stay in the moment and be authentic about who you are, and letting things go which are outside your control. Amidst posts about coming out, discovering who you are at any stage of life, and general turmoil in the world, her post was a light of inspiration and hope for me. She ended with these words which evolved into the chorus of Toss the Bones: ‘So toss the bones high. They’ll fall where they fall. I’ll shrug, and dance while they spin. That’s all one can do.'”

Emma Azelborn: https://emmaazelborn.bandcamp.com/track/toss-the-bones

https://emmaazelborn.bandcamp.com/track/toss-the-bones

You’ve been afraid for far too long So hidden away So scared of a change and what could go wrong Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall The truth will grow so hard to hide And every time You build on the lies will eat you alive Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall Your stem could be cut, your leaves could wilt Discarded aside So suddenly dry yet drowning in guilt Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall But roots could expand so solid and deep Your branches could grow Supported by those whose hearts you keep Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall Whatever may come your strength will hold Stop hiding away You’re ready for change, go out and be bold Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall Toss the bones high Be steady and small And dance while they spin in the sky They’ll fall where they fall

 

 

Sarah Pirtle 1988?

 

Sarah Pirtle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhrcPbhE-iY

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

Chorus And it’s hey ho hi, I want to touch the sky I want to know what the wild goose knows and hear the crickets cry And it’s hey ho hi, you’ll know it by and by When you seek the sound and you follow the ground and you feel the night come round My father knows the name of every bird and every tree As we hike he whistles back each birdsong to me Once we followed deer tracks for half of a day We found the deer and the deer stood still before it ran away We build our fires carefully, they only need one match We eat our food from the milkweed leaves and the blackberry patch We like to camp in a special spot where the trees make a ring We’re not afraid of the dark, we hear the darkness sing When you camp you hear the crickets, then you hear the frogs Those tiny little peepers from the swampy wet bogs Once I heard a rustle and I got up to see A raccoon with some berries running up a tree And I teach my father how to walk across the stream To watch the rocks that can tip you down, slippery moss green How to find the steady ones you can hop across fast And how to jump that final jump, safe into the grass

 

 

trad 

 

On the 1951 recording of Jimmy McBeath, who shared the song with Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson, Peter Hall wrote that it was attributed to a Besom Jimmy from the late 19th century.

Old Blind Dogs: Old Blind Dogs – Tramps and Hawkers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfwE128ZvVE

Chorus: Come aw ye tramps and hawker lads And gaitherers o blaw That tramps this country roon’ and roon’ Come listen ane and aw I’ll tell tae ye a rovin tale On sichts that I hae seen Far up intae the snowy north And south by Gretna Green I’ve seen the high Ben Nevis A-towerin tae the moon I’ve been by Crieff and Callander And roon’ by bonnie Doon And by the Nethy’s silvery tide And places ill tae ken Far up intae the stormy north Lies Urquhart’s fairy glen Oft hae I laucht untae maself When trudgin on the road Wi a bag o blaw upon ma back Ma face as broun’s a toad Wi lumps o cake and tattie scones And cheese and braxie ham Nae thinkin where I’m comin fae Or where I’m goin tae gang I’m happy in the summertime Beneath the bricht blue sky Nae thinkin in the mornin At nicht where I’ve to lie Barns or byres or onywhere Or oot among the hay And if the weather does permit I’m happy every day I’ve done my share o lumpin Wi the dockers on the Clyde I’ve helped the Buckie trawlers Pou the herrin ower the side I’ve helped tae build the mighty bridge That spans the Firth o Forth And wi mony an Angus fermer’s rig I’ve plowed the bonnie earth Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond Have aw been kent by me The Dee, the Don, the Deveron That rushes tae the sea Dunrobin Castle by the way I nearly had forgot And aye, the rickle o cairn marks At the house o John o Groat I’m often roon’ by Gallawa Or doun aboot Stranraer My business leads me onywhere I travel near and far I’ve got a rovin notion Thare’s nothin’ that I loss And aw the days my daily fare And what’ll pay my doss I think I’ll go tae Paddy’s land I’m makkin up ma mind For Scotland’s greatly altered now I canna raise the wind But I will trust in Providence If Providence proves true And I will sing o Erin’s isle E’er I get back tae you

 

 

Fred Smith 2020

 

“When the Taliban took power in 1996, many Afghans held hopes that, for all the severity of their approach, they might at least bring some order to the country wracked by conflict and predatory warlordism. But the regime was harsh, banning all nonreligious social activities including films, music, kite flying and poetry (Afghans love poetry and will take great risks to travel to a poetry meet). These rules were enforced by summary beatings, sham trials and public executions. A result of this was a continuing flow of refugees out of Afghanistan. By mid-2001, an estimated 3.6 million Afghans were living outside their national borders”. First verse supplemented by Alex Ellis.

For my homeland I am pining I will keep this letter rhyming, They can decode, what is written in prose It’s much different here in Sydney But we never fit in, did we? We didn’t comply with the trembling sky. So they tried me in my absence, When I heard about my sentence, I had to smile, here in exile For you know from your excursions If the truth has many versions then what is a lie, to the trembling sky? As our nation looked for heroes We both fell in with the weirdoes All of our peers, artists and queers As I recall we still were kissing, As our friends were going missing Spit in the eye, of the trembling sky If you are taken for correction, They will ask about connection. Just play the game, slander my name And don’t ask them for a reason, Or they’ll have you tried for treason Never ask why of the trembling sky As our countrymen all hardened, Esmat found me in my garden Gave me the queue, time to slip through So I hope you understand There was no time to touch your hand When I had to fly from the trembling sky

 

 

C. Fox Smith 1926

 

“Cicely Fox Smith was an English poet known for writing maritime poetry. Smith did not follow the usual route of the minimum education and early marriage which was expected of young ladies in the Victorian era. She relished her education at Manchester’s High School for Girls and allowed herself to wholeheartedly become immersed in her writing career.” William Pint & Felicia Gale in 1997 adapted a tune they heard from Bob Zentz into the minor setting Alex Sturbaum uses below.

Alex Sturbaum: https://alexsturbaum.bandcamp.com/track/tryphinas-extra-hand

https://alexsturbaum.bandcamp.com/track/tryphinas-extra-hand

On the clipper ship Tryphina Swinging northward from the line With the trade winds blowing steady And her flying kites ashine Five and sixty days from Angier With her freight of Foochow teas There a sailor man lay dying And the words he spoke were these: Many years I’ve sailed this packet And I’ve come to like her well And I’ve not much hope of heaven And I’ve not much use for hell But if be it as they’ll let me By the great hookblock I swear When the great Tryphina wants me Dead as living I’ll be there There’ll be one more at the haliards There’ll be one more on the yard Fisting up them thundering courses When they’re frosted good and hard One more tallyin’ at the forebrace At the waist neck deep in foam One more hand to sweat the tops’l’s up And sheet t’ga’ns’l’s homeÿ It was off the Western islands When he smelled the land he died And they laid a back the main yard And they tossed him overside Then they squared their sheets for England Pulley haulingwith a will But for all they thought they’d left him He sailed aboard her still And the chaps as was his shipmates Went the way as all chaps go and the folks as was her owners Sold the old ship long ago But whoever owned or sold her And whoever went or came The Tryphina’s extra hand He sailed aboard her just the same And he never signed no articles He never drawed no pay He never scoffed no vittles But by night as well as day Though you’d never know his coming And you’d never see him go He’d be always somewheres handy When it’s coming on a blow And he’d stand by wheel at lookout And you’d kind of feel him near Kind of see him and not see him Kind of hear him and not hear And the funny thing about it Was you somehow couldn’t swear But you’d know it it sure as shootin’ When the extra hand was there Chorus And in port when all the chaps had gone Ashore to take their ease And left the ship as lonely And as quiet as you please Not a blessed soul aboard her But the galley cat and you Then you’d hear a sort of something More than once I’ve heard it tooÿ Like a feller up aloft there Puttering around amongst the gear Lashing here another rat line Putting on a mousing there And a-whistling old tunes over Such as shellbacks used to know In the good old China tea trade Many, many years ago