This is very much a Marmite song. Some people love it: a few have found it too depressing to listen to without offensively noisy commentary, but I don't hold to the opinion that all music has to be happy-clappy. (As you'll have noticed if you've followed my other music, though this album is comparatively upbeat.)
The tune is based on two traditional tunes: 'Musselburgh Fair', and 'Dives And Lazarus'. The story is partly based on someone I met in London in the 1970s.
lyrics
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.
credits
from In a Folkier Vein,
released August 13, 2023
Words by David Harley. Tune traditional, arranged and adapted by David Harley. Vocal by David Harley.
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
