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1. |
Goose and Common
02:02
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They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common’
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
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2. |
The Sheepstealer
03:17
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I am a brisk lad though my fortune is bad
And I am exceedingly poor.
Indeed I intend my fortune to mend,
And to build a house downon the moor, my brave boys,
And to build a house down on the moor.
The farmer do keep fat oxen and sheep
And a neat little nag on the moor.
In the middle of the night when the moon do shine bright
There’s a number of work to be done, my brave boys,
There’s a number of work to be done.
I’ll walk all around on another man’s ground,
And I’ll take a fat sheep for my own.
With the aid of my knife I will end of its life
And then I will carry it home, my brave boys,
And then I will carry it home.
My children they will pull the flesh from the ewe,
And I will be where there is none..
When the constable do come I will stand with my gun
And I’ll swear all I have is my own, my brave boys,
I’ll swear all I have is my own.
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3. |
Song of Chivalry
03:29
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When M’Lord returned
To his sheets of silk
And his gentle lady
Of musk and milk
The minstrels sang
In the gallery
Their songs of slaughter
And chivalry
The rafters roared
With laughter and boasting
Beakers were raised and drained
In toasting
The heroes of Crécy
And Agincourt
Or the madness
Of some holy war
The hawk is at rest
On the glove once more
Savage of eye
And bloody of claw
Famine and fever
Are all the yield
Of the burnt-out barns
And wasted fields
The sun grins coldly
Through the trees
The children shiver
The widows grieve
And beg their bread
At the monastery door
Tell me then
Who won the war?
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4. |
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Fetch the rolls: make the tea: then grab the end of that
And sand it till your fingers bleed, if you think you've planed it flat.
Call yourself apprentice? Lad, I'd be ashamed
If I knew so little, to be called by such a name
Never mind the splinters: In a year or two
You'll have quite forgotten that they ever bothered you.
Hands as hard as English oak, muscle, skill and guile:
That's what makes a craftsman; but not you, for a while
Cut yourself, you silly sod? Take care, if you please,
And don't bleed on the timber: do you think it grows on trees?
Call yourself a craftsman? No, lad, never you.
Though if you try your hardest, one day you might scrape through
So you've got your piece of paper? I hope I've taught you well,
And I won't deny you're willing: no doubt time will tell.
Call yourself a craftsman? That's as may well be…
Another year, or five, or ten, and then perhaps we'll see…
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5. |
Long Stand
02:49
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The day I started work, the foreman said to me,
“I’ve another job for you when you’ve finished brewing tea:
Go down to the stores and when you find old Stan,
Tell him Harry sent you for a long stand.”
I got a long stand all right: I stood an hour or more,
Till Stan got tired of the joke and sent me back to the shop floor.
Well I didn’t think it funny, but I laughed and held my peace,
Even when they sent me back for a tin of elbow grease.
Still I did my bit, till I was pensioned off in ’69
From apprentice to foreman, all down the production line.
Many’s the lad I’ve sent myself when things were getting dull
For a can of striped paint or a pound of rubber nails.
But the joke they’re playing now, I just don’t think it’s fair:
Even when you get your ticket, the work just isn’t there.
The safest job in England is handing out the dole:
For every man that gets a job they turn away a hundred more.
For now the work is scarce, again, the queues are building up.
The streets are full of lads and lasses looking out for jobs;
But when you’ve just left school, you hardly stand a chance
They’re sending every lad in England for a long stand.
They say that if you’ve got the gumption you can do just as you please.
They say you’ll do all right with a bit of elbow grease;
But with a hundred out for every job, it’s few that stand a chance
They’re sending every lad in England for a long stand
They’re sending every lass in England for a long, long stand
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6. |
Thomas Anderson
05:08
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We are but images of stone
Do us no harm
We can do none
St. Crispin and St. Crispian are we
On the arch of the Shoemaker’s arbour
High above the river on Kingsland we stood
On the gate to the hall of the shoemakers’ guild
Where the bakers, the tailors, the butchers, the smiths
And the saddlers too their guild arbours built.
Each year in procession the guilds gave a show
And marched through the town to the sound of the drum:
Then it’s back to Kingsland to feast and carouse
And enjoy the great day the guild members come.
We are but images of stone
Do us no harm
We can do none
St. Crispin and St. Crispian are we
On the arch of the Shoemaker’s arbour
On the 10th of June 1752
In a house called The Crown that stood on Pride Hill
John Richards’ workmen received a week’s pay
And there they stayed and drank their fill.
When a redcoat patrol chanced to pass by
The men mocked and reviled them with Jacobite songs
And who struck the first blow no-one was sure
But a bloody riot soon raged through the town.
The authorities trembled with passion and fear
When news of this Jacobite outburst was known
For the House of Hanover had won few hearts
And the Stuarts still plotted to win back the throne.
And so that same year, one raw day in December,
The rebellious townsfolk of Salop looked on
While below the old arch of the Shoemaker’s Arbour
They made an example of Tom Anderson
Who was once spared by death on the field of Culloden
Then joined the dragoons but deserted, they say,
Only to die on the banks of the Severn
By firing squad on a cold Winter’s day.
When the black velvet suit was stripped from his body
The Chevalier’s colours were beneath it, it’s said,
Received from the hands of Bonny Prince Charlie
Whose cause like young Thomas is broken and dead.
For it’s 200 years since Bonny Prince Charlie
Died drunk and embittered, an old man in Rome
While a century ago in the flowers of the Dingle
The old arbour gateway found a new home.
Now who’s to remember the Shoemakers’ Guild
Or the Jacobite rebels who fought for a throne?
And who’s left to grieve for Tom Anderson
But these two hearts of stone?
We are but images of stone
Do us no harm
We can do none
St. Crispin and St. Crispian are we
On the arch of the Shoemaker’s Arbour
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7. |
Ballad of the Arbor Tree
03:00
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In Aston Clun I stand, a tree,
A Poplar dressed, like a ship at sea.
Lonely link with an age long past :
Of Arbor Trees, I am the last.
Since seventeen-eighty-six, My Day
Is writ, the twenty 9th of May.
When new flags fly and we rejoice,
New life has stilled harsh Winter's voice.
To greet a Squire's lovely bride
Did tenants dress my boughs with pride ?
But Old Wives say, my flags are worn
To mark the day an heir was born.
Wise men, mellow o'er evening ale,
Old feuds and wicked deeds retail.
Thanksgiving dressed my arms, they say
For Peace, when blood feuds died away.
Did here ! my father mark the rite
Of Shepherd's, gone with world's first light ?
Was England merrie neath his shade
Till crop-Haired Cromwell joy forbade ?
In sixteen-sixty with the Spring
Came Merry Charles the exiled king.
Did he proclaim May twenty-nine
"Arbor Day" for revelry and wine ?
And Shepherds, plagued with pox and chills
Turn to the old ways of the hills,
To "Mystic Poplar", to renew
Fertility in field and ewe ?
Stand I, for Ancient ways, for Birth,
For Love, for Peace, for Joy and Mirth?
Riddle my riddle as you will
I stand for good and not for ill.
And if my dress your fancy please
Help my flags to ride the breeze
That you with me, will in the Sun,
Welcome all, to the Vale of Clun.
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8. |
Young Hunting
04:08
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Light down, light down my own true love
And stay with me the night
For I have a bed and a fireside too
And a candle that burns so bright.
I can’t light down and I won’t light down
Nor spend the night with thee
For I have a love and a true true love
Would think so ill of me
But he’s bent down from his saddle
To kiss her snowy white cheek
She’s stolen the dagger from out of his belt
And plunged it into him so deep
She’s taken him by his long yellow hair
And the maid’s taken him by the feet
They’ve plunged him into that deep doleful well
Full 20 fathoms deep
And as she’s turned her round to go home
She’s heard some pretty bird sing
Go home, go home you cruel girl
And weep and mourn for him
Fly down, fly down you pretty bird
Fly down and go home with me
And your cage will be made of the glittering gold
And the perch of the best ivory
I can’t fly down and I won’t fly down
And I’ll not go home with thee
For you have slain your own true love
And I’m feared you’ll murder me
I wish I had my bent horn bow
And drawn with a silken string
I surely would shoot that cruel bird
As sits in the briars and sings
I wish you had your bent horn bow
And drawn with a silken string
I surely would fly from vine to vine
And always you’d hear me sing
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9. |
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As I walked from my love's wedding
By the spring where we once lay
From the top of a mighty oak tree
A songbird sang to me
It's been so long that I've loved you
I never will love again
Sing, happy nightingale,
Sing, for your heart is light
Sing out your notes so merry
But all that I can do is cry
My love has wed another
Though I was not to blame
I gave to him my love too freely
Now someone wiser bears his name
Oh, how I wish that the rosebud
Still flourished on the vine
And that my false true lover
Still returned this love of mine
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai
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10. |
Blackwaterside
02:41
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I haven't included the lyrics of this song about a(nother) woman betrayed, since I don't sing them. There are, however, three versions of the lyric, a video of Bert singing it, and information on other versions, on the Mainly Norfolk page at https://mainlynorfolk.info/anne.briggs/songs/blackwaterside.html
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11. |
Loveliest of Trees
01:19
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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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12. |
The Weekends
03:26
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The world has changed since I was born in 1902.
Two World Wars have swept away the world that we once knew:
Two brothers and three sisters , long dead and gone to earth
Our lives were often hard, but now the weekends are the worst.
My old man died just 20 years past.
His health was never good since the Kaiser had him gassed,
But in the end it was cancer that carried him off so fast
I miss him all the time, and the weekends are the worst.
You might say I was lucky, though we never had much cash,
But we had 50-odd good years, more than I’d dare to ask.
I brought up three lovely kids, though another died at birth:
I miss them all a lot, and the weekends are the worst.
I’ve a son in Melbourne, he’s been there since ’62:
I’ve never seen his wife or kids, just a snapshot or two.
My eldest died in the last lot, on a convoy to Murmansk:
It still brings tears to my eyes, and the weekends are the worst.
I’ve a daughter in Glasgow: she writes when she has time,
But that’s a long way off, and I’ve not seen her for a while.
She’s got a son in the army, just been posted to Belfast:
We worry all the time, and the weekends are the worst.
My friends are mostly dead, or else they’ve moved like me
When the street I was brought up in was pulled down in ’63.
Sixty years I’d lived there, child, girl and wife:
Sheltered housing’s not so bad but it can be a lonely life.
Especially since Jim died: we weren’t too bad at first
But now I’m on my own the weekends are the worst.
There’s the club once a week, though it’s just from seven till nine,
And since my fall they only fetch me down from time to time.
There’s my knitting and the TV, for what that might be worth,
But I miss the company, and the weekends are the worst.
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13. |
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Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
But I know fairer far:
Those are as beautiful again
That in the water are;
The pools and rivers wash so clean
The trees and clouds and air,
The like on earth was never seen,
And oh that I were there.
These are the thoughts I often think
As I stand gazing down
In act upon the cressy brink
To strip and dive and drown;
But in the golden-sanded brooks
And azure meres I spy
A silly lad that longs and looks
And wishes he were I.
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14. |
Courtship Dance
01:13
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David A. Harley England, UK
David Harley is a former professional musician, administrator, IT security editor, author and researcher, and former much else that is even less impressive. He now lives in Cornwall. More info at whealalice.com
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