ADD: Chemical Worker's Song (Ron Angel)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 26 Jul 17 - 04:24 PM

Verse 1 line 2 is often sung as above but I think I have heard "ammonia fumes" instead of "among the fumes": the former would seem to make better sense. Which did Ron write?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 27 Jul 17 - 07:29 AM

The word spinners is actually spitters, Joe.

Working alongside chemical dust, (similar to when I worked down the pit with coal dust,) you did a lot of spitting. Chewing tobacco often helped keep the mouth wet and prevented some getting to your lungs. Not that tobacco could be generally seen as a public health measure!

Ron Angel was a man I knew from my visits to Stockton Folk Club and having booked the fettlers a few times years ago. A grand man and a grand "say it like it is" song. I include it now in a tribute set I do to honour our old friend Vin Garbutt, who gave the song a worldwide audience.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel
Date: 27 Jul 17 - 09:08 AM

It's "spinners", I think and this link supports my view.

Equally, I'm fairly sure he lived and breathed among the fumes.

I think I used to have a set of words for this on a broadsheet that I bought at a Teeside Fettlers gig about 40 years ago, but I doubt I could find it now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel
Date: 27 Jul 17 - 09:54 AM

"worked and breathed among the fumes" - either way nothing to do with ammonia.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 08:51 AM

Personally, I'll stick to the late Ron Angel's word "spitters," mainly on two counts;

1. Ron gave me the words and 2. he wrote the song.

Songs do change and words all the more. I wrote songs almost forty years ago which are sung differently not only by others but even by me. Call it the living tradition if you like, or even call it artistic licence but even the fettlers buggered about with the words of that song now and then.

The use of spitters denotes the dusty working conditions and fits with the rest of the verse, as Ron wrote it. I doubt anyone is precious over the word spinner, but as Joe collects at a library level, my clarification was for his benefit.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: Steve Lane
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 06:23 AM

No it is Spinners. Spitters is plain wrong. The line refers to the nylon spinning machines, on the Wilton Site Nylon Works area, that created oily smoke and noise. Ron has excellent diction and you can hear him sing it in any original recording.

Also anything about ammonia is made up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Chemical Worker's Song
From: GUEST,David A
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 07:24 AM

I use to work for ICI (in Runcorn rather than Teesside) and would like to learn this song by Ron Angel that I heard sung by The Young 'Uns at Shrewsbury Folk Festival. I've found the lyrics, guitar chords and several audio versions on YouTube including Ron's original: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=t1rOAMxSLVE , but I've only recently taken up singing and to learn the tune well I would prefer to have the melody in sheet music form, which would also make it easier to transpose it into a more comfortable key. Does anyone where I could find/buy it?

Subject: RE: ADD: Chemical Worker's Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Mar 21 - 11:34 PM

This recording is from the songwriter, Ron Angel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y4lroi5-IM

I take it the recording by Great Big Sea is better-known:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzcGOgxDoEk

Subject: DT Correction: Chemical Worker's Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Mar 21 - 11:42 PM

The lyrics in the Digital Tradition come from the post from "Poet" above. I'll listen to the Ron Angel Recording and post my corrections on the right side.

I. C. I. SONG (CHEMICAL WORKERS SONG)(DT Lyrics) (Ron Angel) A process man am I and I'm telling you no lie. I've worked and breathed among the fumes. That trail across the sky. There's thunder all around me and poison in the air. There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell. And dust all in my hair. Cho: But you go boys go. They time your every breath. And every day you're in this place . you're two days nearer death, but you go. I've worked among the spinners I've breathed in the oil and smoke. I've shovelled up the gypsum till it nigh on makes you choke. I've stood knee deep in cyanide gone sick with a caustic burn. I've been working rough I've seen enough to make your stomach turn. There's overtime there's bonus opportunities galore. The young men like the money. Aye they all come back for mare. Ah but soon you're knocking on. You look older than you should. For every bob made on this job you pay with flesh and blood. Repeat first verse.

ICI SONG (CHEMICAL WORKERS' SONG) (corrected) (Ron Angel) A process man am I and I'm telling you no lie. I work and breathe among the fumes That trail across the sky. There's thunder all around me and poison in the air. There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell, And dust all in my hair. CHORUS: And it's go boy go. They'll time your every breath. And every day you're in this place . You're two days nearer death, but you go. I've worked among the spinners, I've breathed in the oily smoke. I've shoveled up the gypsum, and it nigh on makes you choke. I've stood knee deep in cyanide, gone sick with a caustic burn. Been working rough and seen enough to make your stomach turn. CHORUS There's overtime and bonus opportunities galore. The young lads like the money and they all come back for more. But soon you're knocking on and look older than you should. For every bob made on this job, you pay with flesh and blood. CHORUS (TWICE)

Steve Lane (above) posted an additional verse written later by Ron Angel:

I've worked in the compressors, learned to lip read with the rest
I cycled past the nitrite felt the prickle in me chest
I've toiled in the anhydrite got blistered down the mine
I'm showering well to shift the smell you get from Ollyfine

The notes in the Digital Tradition are from Suzanne's post above.

Recorded a few years ago by the Canadian group, Great Big Sea on their album "Up
" . Lorre Wyatt recorded it on his Roots and Branches for Folk-Legacy.

@science @work
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Thread #14681   Message #127610
Posted By: Susanne (skw)
24-Oct-99 - 08:38 PM
Thread Name: ADD: Chemical Worker's Song
Subject: RE: LyrHelpReq: Chemical Worker's Song

The song was written by Ron Angel, who is from I don't know where. But the following extract from Sean Damer's 'Glasgow - Going for a Song' illustrates the song's theme quite well, I think.

[1990:] In the period before the First World War, a great deal of industrial work was highly dangerous. There was no such thing as Health and Safety at Work regulations; the life of a worker was literally cheap. Some of the works must have appeared like Dante's 'Inferno'. [...] The terrible costs of working in this particular inferno [in the mid-19th century] were revealed some thirty years later, in 1889, in a newspaper interview with one of the chemical workers [of Tennant's St Rollox Chemical Works in Glasgow]: "[...] If a man goes to the works young he will be past working before he reaches forty years of age [...]. For instance, you will easily know a chrome-worker from the fact that, as a rule, the bridge of his nose is completely eaten away. [...]" The majority of the chemical workers [in Glasgow] were Irish; they were paid an average of 15s 6d per week, a pitiful wage. [...] The dreadful conditions in these chemical plants were the subject of Keir Hardie's famous attacks on Lord Overtoun in 1899. Overtoun was the proprietor of a large chemical works on the Glasgow-Rutherglen border, and also a noted philanthropist and man of religion. Keir Hardie, in a series of articles in the socialist newspaper 'Labour Leader' - subsequently reprinted as pamphlets - exposed the fearful working conditions in Overtoun's chemical works. He confirmed that the workers rapidly lost the cartilage in their nose working with these noxious chemicals, but also suffered from 'chrome holes' being burnt in their body, and respiratory diseases. Moreover, they worked a twelve-hour day, seven-day week - with no time off for meals, and in foul conditions. (Damer, Glasgow 62f)