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Call Yourself a Craftsman? (as poem)

from Hands of the Craftsman (expanded edition) by David A. Harley

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Just to confuse the issue, this isn't (in this version) a song, though there is some guitar music behind the poem. In fact, the words fit pretty well to the tune now mostly associated with 'Tramps and Hawkers', which seems to have been written by 'Besom Jimmy' in the late 19th century, though the tune is far older than that. I may record it to that tune at some point.

At the time the 'Nice (if you can get it)' revue was put together and (briefly) toured, I was working for a company that built staircases (mostly). This track is based on my personal experience of working in the woodworking industry, though I was a wood machinist, not a carpenter.

Ian Campbell wrote a song called 'The Apprentice's Song' but it's about apprentice gas fitters, not an apprentice chippy.

The bit of doggerel that begins the track is called 'Ballad of a Carpenter', and goes like this:

I've just spent
six solid weeks
building this staircase
without even a lad
to hold the nails
and I don't
want to see anyone
walking all over it…

lyrics

Fetch the rolls: make the tea: 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…

credits

from Hands of the Craftsman (expanded edition), released March 25, 2021
By David A. Harley, though the music is loosely based on a traditional tune. Recorded at Wheal Alice Studio, Cornwall.

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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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