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22 Sep 15 - 06:40 AM (#3739017) Subject: Origins: A Woman's Work is Never Done From: GUEST,Mike Yates 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. |
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22 Sep 15 - 07:39 AM (#3739030) Subject: RE: Origins: A Woman's Work is Never Done From: maeve Mike, I don't suppose the credits in this Mudcat thread would help (Even if only to cross off another variation)? Lyr Req: A woman's work is in the 'ome |
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22 Sep 15 - 07:49 AM (#3739031) Subject: RE: Origins: A Woman's Work is Never Done From: maeve For the sake of others thinking to help Mike find a source for this version, here's a link to scholarly work he had already done on the subject, back a few years: Wonderfully Curious some thoughts on the English song tradition |