The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #17996   Message #176953
Posted By: Susan A-R
11-Feb-00 - 10:12 PM
Thread Name: Songs about farm folk
Subject: RE: Help: Songs about farm folk
Someone also wrote a song I am a farmer, not a farmer's wife. I believe it was about the law that meant that a farmer's wife had to pay inheritance taxes on the farm, since it was her husbnad's business. This tax burden often caused (still causes) women to have to sell the land, even though they have worked it side by side with their husbands and it has been a partnership. Believe it's by a Florida songwriter. Also Tom Paxton's Who will Feed the People on his Paxton Reports Album is a good one. Isn't Dougie McLean (I never spell that last name right) song Rescue Me about a farmer having to use more pesticides to keep up with production, knowing that he's doing in the land etc. It seems to me that he has written a number of songs about vanishing rural life. Song of the Scythe is also a lovely one about passing along skills and knacks.

Susan A-R