ANGUS FRASER
©Rick Fielding, BMI

     E                            A              B7
  My name is Angus Fraser, ninety summers I have seen.
  A                      E                      B7
  Born below decks on an immigrant ship sailing out of Aberdeen.
     E                                  A                 B7
  To leave her land and kinfolk near to broke my mother's heart.
        A                 E                 B7
  For a newborn babe on a twelve-foot wave, hard times from the start.
  
  Halifax was my first home, and I grew up hard and strong.
  I watched my old man waste away from working so damned long.
  At sixteen years, in a uniform, I crossed the seas again.
  To defend this land, I shot a man.  Those were hard times then.
  
                F#m  B7    E           B7             E
     Those were hard times then; not a dollar left to spend.
        C#M               G#               A              B7
     We paid the cost for what we lost and faced it once again.
     F#m  B7    E        B7                  E
     Hard times then; it seemed they'd never end,
            A                       E                    B7               E
     But we fought like hell and we lived to tell of the hard times once again.
  
  I worked again until the crash sent prices tumbling down.
  Hung on by my fingertips till the banker's men came 'round.
  To throw a farmer's family out, that's the worst of any crimes.
  It was called the Great Depression, but I called it more hard times.
  
  Once again aboard a train, this time I rode alone.
  In an empty boxcar, prarie winds can chill you to the bone.
  I'd heard of work in the logging camps on B.C.'s northern coast.
  By God, I missed my family.  That's when hard times hurt the most.
  
      And those were hard times then...
  
  For seven years I swung an axe, cut down a million trees.
  She sent love and I sent my pay, but in time we ceased to be.
  The next war came and, once again, I answered when they called,
  But the days and nights in a prison camp were the hardest times of all.
  
  I worked the mills in Cornwall, fished in Newfoundland.
  I love this country east to west, for I built it with my hands.
  Twice more I got  married, now my children number eight.
  Oh, the hard times coming 'round again, guess that's to be their fate.
  
     Those were hard times then...
     Those were hard times then...
  

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From CD-123 Lifeline - Rick Fielding
© 1995 Folk-Legacy Records, Inc.