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Sara Price mid-1800s

Peggy Seeger wrote in 1968: "This song was copied from the diary of Mrs. Sara A. Price of Ottawa, Illinois. She had seven children and lost them all. Some of her sons were killed in the American Civil War. Thus, this version can be dated about mid 19th century."

One day as I wandered I heard a complaining,
I saw an old woman the picture of gloom.
She stared at the mud on her doorstep (’twas raining)
And this was her song as she wielded her broom,

Chorus:
“Oh, life is a toil and love is a trouble,
Beauty will fade and riches will flee.
Pleasures will dwindle and prices will double,
And nothing is as I would wish it to be.”

“There’s too much of worriment goes to a bonnet,
There’s too much of ironing goes to a shirt.
There’s nothing repays the time you waste on it,
There’s nothing stays with us but trouble and dirt.

“In March there is mud, there’s sludge in December,
The hot winds of summer are laden with dust.
In fall the leaves litter, in muddy September
The wallpaper rots and the candlesticks rust.

“There’s worm in the cherries and fly on the roses,
There’s ants in the sugar and mice in the pies.
The rubbish of spiders no human supposes,
There’s ravaging beetles and damaging flies.

“There’s sweeping at six and there’s dusting at seven,
There’s victuals at eight and there’s dishes at nine.
There’s potting and panning from ten to eleven,
We’ve scarce finished breakfast, we’re ready to dine.

“With grease and with grime from corner to centre,
Forever at war, forever alert.
No rest for a day lest the enemy enter,
I spend my whole life in a struggle with dirt.

“Last night in my dreams I was banished forever
To a far distant rock in the midst of the sea.
My sole task in life, a constant endeavour
To brush off the waves as they swept over me.

“Alas, ’twas no dream! At last I behold it!
I see I am helpless my fate to avert.”
She laid down her broom, her apron she folded,
She lay down and died and was buried in dirt. 

Brian Lindsay 2018

"Brian felt compelled to write this song after a few short years of restoration work on Washington's creeks and rivers provided a dismaying number of examples for the narrative."

Countercurrent: https://countercurrentmusic.bandcamp.com/track/house-on-the-river

Late last fall when the rain came around
I saw a house submerged from the windows down
The owner was there but he didn’t even frown,
said I’ve seen it worse before

Chorus:
Why, why would you build your house
where the waters flow free to the north and south
Why, why would you build your house
right on the banks of the river

The excavator creeks and groans
as it dumps its load of riprap stone,
To shore up the bank and protect your home,
but why was it there at all?

Daddy sends the kids to the yard to play,
says close to the water’s edge don’t you stray
We’re losing a foot of lawn a day
and we can’t seem to tame the river

Those northwest floods in the spring and the fall
should come as no surprise to us all
They’re likely to be your own downfall
if you gamble with the river

So to souls who are hurt by floods these days,
my tears I’ll shed, my glass I’ll raise
But to permitters and builders, remember this phrase,
don’t build more homes on the river 

They Might Be Giants 2002

There’s a house at the top of a tree
There’s a house at the top of a tree
In the house there’s a room
In the room there’s a chair
And sitting in the chair is you

There’s a nose at the end of a snout
Of a dog with his head out the window
Of a car that’s driving away from the tree
And at the top of a tree there’s a house And in the house
there’s a room and in the room There’s a chair
and in the chair is you

There’s a plan to eat the house
In the mind of a mouse in the woods
And the mouse in the woods has a smell that’s detected
By the nose at the end of a snout of a dog
And the dog has his head out the window of a car
And the car is driving away from the tree
And at the top of a tree there’s a house And in the house
there’s a room and in the room There’s a chair
and in the chair is you

There are no more potato chips left
In the empty bag in your hand
And the crumpling sound of the empty bag
Makes the mice get mad And when the mice get mad
It leads to a plan to eat the house
And the plan’s in the mind of the mouse in the woods
And the mouse in the woods has a smell that’s detected
By the nose at the end of a snout of a dog
And the dog has his head out the window of a car
And the car is driving away from the tree
And at the top of a tree there’s a house And in the house
there’s a room and in the room There’s a chair
and in the chair is you

And the reason there are no more chips
In the empty bag in your hand
Is that the crumpling sound of the empty bag
Makes the mice get mad Which leads to a plan
To eat the house But just in time
The dog arrives To give to the mouse
The potato chips That you took from the bag
And gave to the dog To deliver to the mouse
So the mouse would not eat you 

trad 

19th century; tune is "Napoleon Crossing the Alps". Popularized by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners in 1960s. Possibly references 1798 rebellion. Minor tweaks by Alex Ellis to remove gendered words.

Good evening all my jolly friends. I’m glad to find you well,
If you’ll gather all round me now the story I will tell,
For I’ve got a situation and begorra and begob,
I can say that I’ve a weekly wage of nineteen bob.
‘Tis twelve months come October since I left my native home,
After working in Killarney, boys, to bring the harvest home,
But now I wear a Gansey and around my waist a belt,
I’m the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot ash-felt.

Chorus:
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat.
And if it doesn’t last forever, well, I’ll surely eat my hat.
But now I wear a Gansey and around my waist a belt,
I’m the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot ash-felt.

The other night a policeman comes and he says to me “McGuire,
Would you kindly let me light me pipe down at your boiler fire?”
Well, he planks himself right down in front with coattails up so neat,
Well, says I “Me decent man, you’d better go and mind your beat.”
He ups and yells “I’m down on you! I’m up to all your pranks!
I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks!”
I hit right from the shoulder, and I gave him such a belt,
That he fell into the boiler full of hot asphalt.

We quickly pulled him out again and put him in the tub,
And with soap and boiler water we began to rub and scrub.
But never the devil the tar came off it turned as hard as stone,
And with every other rub sure you could hear the copper groan.
Twixt the rubbing and the scrubbing sure he caught his death of cold,
And for scientific purposes his body it was sold.
In the Kelvingrove Museum, now, he’s hanging in his pelt,
As a monument to the Irish making hot asphalt 

Lester Simpson 1999

Alex Sturbaum: https://countercurrentmusic.bandcamp.com/track/homeland

Oh the glad lives, sometimes sad lives, north east the clouds are streaming
Over joy and over heartache To a place that glads the heart
Over working days and idle To the land that gives you meaning
Back to the friends and family That were never meant to part

Chorus:
All the way, spinning back where touchstone houses drive your fears away
All the way, though circumstance and fortune make you roam
All the way, where familiar sights and smells will dry your tears away
Oh, the sky goes all the way home

So you worked to build a life As you watch your children growing
Each new generation Just trying to prove its worth
And where your parents toiled The river ever flowing
Past the farm and factory Through the land that gave you birth

The rain that shapes the gritstone Runs down to the river
Wheels turn in dark water As it rolls down to the foam
And the pausing man looks seaward Where the elemental giver
Burns the waters up to heaven And the clouds are riding home 

trad 

Chorus:
Oh Hilo, Johnny, Hilo, I wonder what’s the matter now.
Johnny come down to Hilo, pull down below.

I used to work down Mobile Bay but I got in debt and ran away.

Away down South where I was born among the fields of yeller corn

Oh Mobile Bay’s no place for me, I’ll pack my bags and go to sea.

Was you ever in Mobile Bay, screwin’ cotton by the day?

Growl you may but go you must, if you growl too much your head’ll bust. 

Arthur Guiterman 1935 & Pete Sutherland 

"About Vermont's hills; the words were written in 1935 by Arthur Guiterman, who became Poet Laureate of Vermont, and set more recently to music by Vermonter Pete Sutherland."

Nightingale: https://beckytracyandkeithmurphy.bandcamp.com/track/hills-mulqueens

I never loved your plains! Your gentle valleys,
Your drowsy country lanes And pleached alleys.
I want my hills! The trail That scorns the hollow.
Up, up the ragged shale Where few will follow,

Up, over wooded crest And mossy bowlder
With strong thigh, heaving chest, And swinging shoulder,
So let me hold my way, By nothing halted,
Until, at close of day, I stand, exalted,

High on my hills of dream– Dear hills that know me!
And then, how fair will seem The lands below me,
How pure, at vesper-time, The far bells chiming!
God, give me hills to climb, And strength for climbing! 

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. 

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 

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