Origins: Poverty Knock

Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock
From: r.padgett
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 10:38 AM

Many years ago I went to a folk event in Pudsey, Leeds and spoke to a Mrs Fawthrope who was quiet elderly

She maintained that she and Tom Daniel "remembered the verses" that the Poverty Knocker ladies sang and had made up

I have no doubt that some embelishments were made by Tom Daniel in his performing of the song over time

I am informed by Wendy price that he was about 5 feet tall and rarely bought his own beer as he couldn't get to the bar

he was reputed to have spilled out a packet of condoms from his ukelle case in Dewsbury town hall late 1960s!!

So Poverty Poverty Knocks, tap! tap! was mandatory

My thanks to Mick Haywood for singing this one New Year for Yorkshire Garland

Ray

Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock
From: peregrina
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 02:58 AM

Poverty Knocks, words, notes & sound file at Yorkshire Garland

Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock
From: Austin P
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 09:48 PM

One of my favourite songs, - I grew up amongst' cotton mills: I've a couple of questions for the 'catters:

"Tuner should tackle my loom"

I learnt it in my callow youth as:

"Tackler should fettle* me Loom"

Which, to me, makes more sense. A 'tackler' was the roving supervisor/mechanic in a weaving shed, often despised and the butt of jokes (search for 'tacklers tales'). Mind you, that's Lancashire usage, it may be have been slightly different all of 10 miles away in W. Yorkshire ...

Another thing (to my shame), I never sing the verse:

We've got to wet our own yarn,
By dippin' it into the tarn
It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy,
and there's mice in that dirty old barn.

Because I have no idea what it means. I remember steam being hissed into the weaving shed to keep the cotton damp (to stop it breaking), but as to wetting your own yarn? And what's a Barn got to do with it? I've always been baffled by that.

And, being a bit pedantic (joke alert) Looms don't go 'knock', they go: THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM

Austin P

*fix, tune, repair.

Subject: Lyr Add: POVERTY KNOCK (from Roy Palmer)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 08:21 PM

Slight variations, from a book "Poverty Knock" a picture of industrial life in the nineteenth century through songs, ballads and contempory accounts" Selected & edited by Roy Palmer (Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0 521 20443 7

This is quoted "as is". My only comment is that the scansion seems a little more regular!

POVERTY KNOCK

Poverty, poverty knock,
My loom is a-sayin' all day;
Poverty, poverty knock,
Gaffer's too skinny to pay:

Poverty, poverty knock,
Keepin' one eye on the clock;
I know I can guttle
When I hear my shuttle,
Go poverty, poverty knock.

Up every mornin' at five,
I wonder that we keep alive.
Tired and yawnin'
On a cold mornin',
It's back to the dreary old drive.

Oh dear! We're goin' to be late,
Gaffer is stood at the gate.
We're out o' pocket
Our wages they're dockit,
We'll 'a' to buy grub on the slate.

And when our wages they'll bring,
We're often short of a string.;
And while we are fratchin' wi' gaffer for snatchin',
We know to his brass he will cling.

We've got to wet our own yarn,
By dippin' it into the tarn
It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy,
and there's mice in that dirty old barn.

Oh dear my poor 'ead it sings,
I should have woven three strings
But threads are breakin' and my back is achin'
Oh dear, I wish I had wings.

Sometimes a-shuttle flies out,
And gives some poor woman a clout;
There she lies bleedin', but nobody's 'eedin',
Who's goin' to carry her out?

Tuner should tackle my loom,
'E'd rather sit on his bum;
'E's far too busy a-courtin' our Lizzie,
And I cannot get him to come.

Lizzie's so easy led,,
I think that 'e takes her to bed
She always was skinny, now just look at her pinny
It's think it's high time they were wed.

All variations from the version posted by Mary (above) are shown by "block printing" although this may be difficult to spot for the frequent replacement of the letter 'g' at the end of a word by an apostrophe!
Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 06:09 AM

Although the tempo is supposed to replicate that of the loom, Sarah Davies, who is a professional weaver, says that it would be impossible to sing it fast enough to make it sounds like a loom!

Good song though.

ZM

Subject: ADD Version: Poverty Knock
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 02:15 PM

This is the full text of the song as emailed to me by Angi & Mick Haywood over the weekend. They have also emailed a biog of Tommy which is too long to post. Anyone wanting it can PM me and I will send it on.


POVERTY KNOCK

Poverty, poverty knock,
My loom is a-saying all day;
Poverty, poverty knock,
Gaffer's too skinny to pay:

Poverty, poverty knock,
Keeping one eye on the clock;
I know I can guttle
When I hear my shuttle,
Go poverty, poverty knock.

Up every morning at five,
A wonder that we keep alive.
Tired and yawning
On a cold morning,
Back to the old weary drive.

Oh dear! We're going to be late,
Gaffer is stood at the gate.
We're out of pocket
Our wages they dock it,
We have to buy grub on the slate.

Oh, how my poor hear sings,
I should have woven three strings
But threads are breaking
My back is aching
Oh dear, I wish I had wings.

We have to wet our own yarn,
Dipping it into the tarn
It's wet an' soggy
Makes us feel groggy,
With mice in that dirty old barn.

Sometimes a-shuttle flies out,
Gives some poor weaver a clout;
There she lies bleeding Nobody's heeding,
Who's going to carry her out?

Tuner should tackle my loom,
He'd rather sit on his bum;
He's much too busy
A courtin' o'r Lizzie,
I cannot get him to cum'.

Lizzie is easily led,
They say that her takes to be;
She used to be skinny
Now just look at her pinny
It's just about time they were wed.


This worksong dates back to the early power looms. Owing to low wages and the slow dreary   "knock-ity knock" sound of the looms, weavers were called "Poverty Knockers.

The tempo should be slow 3/4, but strongly accentuated.

---

Also see this version (click)

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: lamarca
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 11:58 AM

And Judy learned it from me, Linn, and I learned it from recordings by John and Rosie Goucher and Roy Harris (and subsequently I went back and added the two verses they skip...) I like Pete Coe's melancholy version, too. Another song that was done to death in English folk clubs, skipped across the Atlantic to a new life here in the U.S.!

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 08:01 AM

Hi Greg,

My most recent contact with Tony - via our library, which has a copy of a book edited by Michael Pickering and Tony Green - "Everyday Culture: Popular song and the Vernacular Milieu" - Open University Press 1987. It has some very interesting material in it, though it also contains a few blinding glimpses of the obvious wrapped up in sociological jargon.

eg "In reference if not in sense, cultural meaning is therefore local, and any methodology for describing it should begin with the defined locality. The obvious objection 'How local is local?', is actually as meaningless as it is obvious. Both objectively and subjectively, the 'local' is infinitely variable."

Ho hum!

Anyow, I'd be delighted to hear news of Tony, or even better, to make contact with the lad himself.


Wassail!

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 03:51 AM

Any body know what happened to Tony(AE) Green, the man who collected the song(as quoted from AL Lloyd). Knew him well in the 60's, last heard he was doing something academic in Leeds. Any recent sightings?

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Yorkshire Tony
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 08:32 PM

Word around the folk scene in Leeds when I were a lad was that in reconstructing it Tommy Daniel cleaned up the original material he remembered quite extensively as he considered it too risque for general performance. It would be very interesting to know the content of any original manuscript.

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 07:28 PM

Well, all I was going to say was it's in Lloyd. I'd heard it before, but I actually learned it from Judy Cook.

Linn

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: phil h
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 06:00 PM

Bill & Wendy Price lived in Dewsbury, close to Tommy Daniel's home in Batley. Wendy wrote in 1972 on the sleve notes to Bill's 'Fine old Yorkshire gentleman' LP that Tommy was best known for 'preserving and reconstructing' Poverty Knock.

Around the time of Tommy's death much of his material was written down & a very few coppies were made, Wendy Price thinks someone borrowed her copy. Keith Pearson (who ran a music shop in Dewsbury) died 7 or 8 years ago & his copy was probably thrown out. A Guy called Dennis who now lives in Peterborough had a copy off Keith but can't find it. So does anyone know of any surviving copy? Did Mick Haywood (now in Whitby) have a copy?

Phil

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 05:04 PM

Pete Coe sings "Poverty Knock", and reckons that Tom Daniel probably wrote it. I asked Pete about the source a year or so ago after I'd heard it introduced by Mike Harding on the radio as a traditional song, and Pete replied as follows:

"The probable writer of 'Poverty Knock' was Tom Daniel, a weaver from
Pudsey. I met him in about 1970, shortly before he died. He was born
around 1890, left school at 11 & worked in various mills around W.
Yorks. & did other jobs too, outside of weaving. The story he apparently told was that he'd remembered bits of the song from his early years. However, the song bears striking resemblance to many of the poems thathe did write. The collector of the song, Tony Green, reckons he wrote it too. I'm told there's no surviving relatives to claim royalties so as it's been designated a 'traditional' song for so long, that's how it's usually referred to."

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Willa
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 03:54 PM

Hester. Mill songswere not always jolly. You might find these useful:

• thread.cfm?threadid=45879#679134
• @displaysong.cfm?SongID=4762
• thread.cfm?threadid=2173#8033

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: LaMarca
Date: 08 Jul 97 - 06:09 PM

A. L. Lloyd wrote in his book, "Folk Song in England" that Tom Daniel told Green in 1965 that he learned the song 60 years earlier in the first mill he worked in after leaving school. Doing the arithmetic,, Mr. Daniel was born in 1894, and started working in the mills in 1905, age 11...

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Susan of DT
Date: 03 Jul 97 - 08:32 PM

According to the book Victoria's Inferno (songs of the old mills, mines, manufacturies, canals, and railways, edited by Jon Raven, 1978: Poverty Knock "text and melody: from the singing of Tom Daniel, a Batley, Yorkshire weaver (collected by A.E. Green 1965). Tom Daniel died in April 1970 aged 76."

Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock
From: Bert Hansell
Date: 03 Jul 97 - 01:24 PM

The Spinners recorded it if that's any help.

Subject: Source for Poverty Knock
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Jul 97 - 01:07 PM

Someone asked me this, and I'm afraid my incipient Altzheimer's has taken over.

Who wrote Poverty Knock, and when.

As I recall, it was in the 1960's (to everyone's surprise), but I can't find my references.