Lyrics & Knowledge Personal Pages Record Shop Auction Links Radio & Media Kids Membership Help
The Mudcat Cafesj



User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
GUEST,Mike Yates Origins: A Woman's Work is Never Done (3) Origins: A Woman's Work is Never Done 22 Sep 15


I am currently writing the notes to a CD of the Sussex traditional singer Harry Upton, but am unable to trace this Music Hall song to a specific composer or singer. There are a number of songs with this title, but I cannot trace this version. Any help would be appreciated.

A Woman's Work is Never Done.

I'm a poor hard-working female ever since I've been a wife
If you listen I would tell to you my woes
For there's plenty more the same, so I'll tell you jolly plain
Just what the married woman undergoes
It's very nice at first, you have no babes to nurse
The days and nights so happy they seem
But when the kiddies come, you can reckon you are done
That's when a woman's trouble it begins

Chorus:
Washing and scrubbing and mending up the clothes
All the kiddies with their shirts out they will run
I've already buried five and I have ten more alive
So I find a woman's work is never done

Each morning there's the kiddies to wash and bundle off to school
And two or three are kicking up a row
While the oldest gets a (plain/pain?), the silly little fool
And lets the baby fall upon the ground
We've lately breeched young Tommy, he's often in distress
And holding up his trousers, in he runs
For there's a job to do, 'cause he's been and made a mess
So I find a woman's work is never done

If you up the street, five minutes for a treat
You're bound to take the young 'uns out as well
For you have no time to stop, just to have a little drop
'Cause the old-man might come home, you cannot tell
If he comes home and finds you out he's bound to rave and shout
Or "Where the dickens* is your mother gone?"
So you never ought to roam but to always be at home
So I find a woman's work is never done

*dickens = a euphemism for the devil.


Post to this Thread -

Back to the Main Forum Page

By clicking on the User Name, you will requery the forum for that user. You will see everything that he or she has posted with that Mudcat name.

By clicking on the Thread Name, you will be sent to the Forum on that thread as if you selected it from the main Mudcat Forum page.

By clicking on the Subject, you will also go to the thread as if you selected it from the original Forum page, but also go directly to that particular message.

By clicking on the Date (Posted), you will dig out every message posted that day.

Try it all, you will see.