I learned this traditional song from a photocopy someone gave me in the 1980s. The notes on the page described it as coming from (I think I remember this rightly) Lincolnshire, and the lyrics were written out in dialect. Lord knows where the photocopy is today, so this is from memory, and sans dialect. But Kathy, it fits your purpose to a tee. If you want the tune let me know and we'll figure how to get it to you.

Home Brewed

There's naught in this world like my own chimney nook
When my chair up to the fire I've pulled,
And my wife has just rocked the wee baby asleep
And then fetched me a mug of home-brewed.

Refrain
Home-brewed, home-brewed,
And then fetched me a mug of home-brewed.

She smiles, does the old dame, as a new bride just wed,
When her caps and her napkins she's blued,
And then warmed up her face with a blink of the old light
That shines in a mug of home-brewed.

Refrain
Home-brewed, home-brewed,
That shines in a mug of home-brewed.

My house is my castle has often been sung
Where no king, duke or lord dare intrude.
But it needs no hard fighting to keep out a foe
When I truce with a mug of home-brewed.

Refrain

There once came a bothering a neighbor at the door
And his nose into the keyhole he screwed.
But he soon scampered back to his father the dhule [sic]
When he saw I'd a mug of home-brewed.

Refrain

It'll help us to fettle both the nation and the laws
And to solder up many a feud,
And if the world has gone wrong we can right it again
By the power in a mug of home-brewed.

Refrain

So come to my elbow thy primest of drinks
With the rarest of pleasures imbued.
The jolliest neighbor to jog with through life
Is a full poaching mug of home-brewed.

Refrain


Jerry