The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #2933 Message #621274
Posted By: GUEST,hrothgar
04-Jan-02 - 07:59 PM
Thread Name: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
Subject: Lyr Add: HARD CRACKERS, COME AGAIN NO MORE
From the Union side in the (US) Civil War when the rations weren't all that attractive:
HARD CRACKERS, COME AGAIN NO MORE
Let us close our game of poker, take our tin cups in hand, While we all gather round the cook's tent door, Wher dry mummies of hard crackers are given to each man: Oh! hard crackers, come again no more!
CHORUS: 'Tis the song and the sigh of the hungry, "Hard crackers, hard crackers, come again no more! Many days have you lingered upon our stomachs sore, Oh, hard crackers, come again no more!"
There's a hungry, thirsty soldier, who wears his life away, With torn clothes, whose better days are o'er, He is sighing now for whiskey, and with throat as dry as hay, Sings "Hard crackers, come again no more!"
'Tis the song that is uttered in camp by night and day, 'Tis the wail that is mingled with each snore; 'Tis the sighing of the soul for spring chickens far away, "Oh, hard crackers come again no more!"