The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #121002   Message #2637308
Posted By: Fred McCormick
21-May-09 - 04:13 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Ballad of Trades (Ewan MacColl)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Ballad Of The Trades
There you go. Hot off the booklet and complete with MacColl's booklet note.
^^
BALLAD OF THE TRADES (English)

This comprehensive catalogue of the tools of the trades might be said to sum up the contents of this album. Each of the songs has been conceived in the terminology of the trade of its maker, each process of work honed down to fine shades of description, each symbol exactly mirroring or extending the tool(s) used, or the medium in which the trade is carried on. Such a song could well be extended into modern life, what with the myriad of new professions, trades and skills daily being developed – as long as the eye remains receptive to impressions of shape, the hand to impressions of texture and the mind open to analogous sensation and creation, 'The Ballad of the Trades' could well have thousands of verses!
(Source: a collation of several broadside texts, with tune by the singer.)

1 Here's to all trades and all tradesmen,
And let you be wise men or fools,
But remember each day that your trade would decay
If the maids didn't look to your tools.
If the maids didn't look to your tools.

2 The Blacksmith, the smoky old Blacksmith
He's known as the best of good fellows:
But his iron would stay cold and his fire burn no coal
If a maid didn't blow up the bellows. (2)

3 The Miller, the musty old Miller,
The Miller is strong in the back,
But he won't lift a finger at measuring meal
Till a maiden holds open the sack. (2)

4 The Tailor, the frisky old Tailor,
He opens his pack in the yard
But he never will try any fittings unless
There's a maiden to hold out his yard. (2)

5 The Baker, the dusty old Baker
He's so full of liquor and sin:
And he never will fire his oven red-hot
But he's thrusting his maiden in. (2)

6 The Butcher, the bloody great butcher,
He sells the best beef on the bone,
But he never starts grinding his cleaver unless
There's a maiden a-turning his stone. (2)

7 The Brewer, the yeasty old Brewer,
The Brewer that brews beer and ale;
And he never will let his brew come to the boil
But he's taking his maid by the tail. (2)

8 The Weaver, the cunning old weaver,
He follows the clattering trade;
But he never starts shooting his shuttle without
He's a-shooting it first at his maid. (2)

9 The Spinner, the weary old Spinner,
Who walks up and down with his mule,
But he's too proud to bend just to keep up his end
And a maid must be doffin' his spool. (2)

10 The Ploughman, the jolly old Ploughman,
He follows the plough in the stilts,
But the clods wouldn't turn if a maid hadn't learned him
To drive the blade up to the hilts. (2)

11 The Collier, the mucky old Collier,
He works underground in the pit,
But there's never a tub would come up on the rope
If a maid didn't sharpen his pick. (2)

12 The Tinker, the travelling Tinker,
Who works with his solder and metal;
But he surely would fail when he's driving his nail
If his maid didn't hold up the kettle. (2)

13 Then drink to the journeyman craftsman,
And all who're apprenticed to trade,
But there's never a screw or a nut would be turned
If it weren't for the help of a maid. (2)