JennyO-

Thanks so much for following up this question with Tom Bridges, and give him our best in return. What he has to say certainly makes a lot of sense to me, but it's especially nice to establish the relationship with his mother (for the record I would like to have her name!) and the Workers Music Association in London and Alan Bush. The literary references are the same ones that I used to learn the song in the early 1970's.

We probably need to clarify which verses are "original" and who added an extra verse. One candidate is from the version in THE PANIC IS ON, © 1966, p. 8:

You are able to work for your living,
And rejoice in your strength and your skill;
So try to be kind and forgiving
To a man whom a day's work would kill;
You can work and still talk with your neighbour,
You can look the whole world in the face,
But the landlord who ventured to labour,
Would never survive the disgrace.

The other candidate verse is from THE PEOPLE'S SONGBOOK (1948):

When thunder clouds gather and darken,
You can sleep undisturbed in your bed,
But the landlord must sit up and harken,
And shiver, and wonder, and dread;
If you're killed, then you'll die in a hurry,
And you never will know your bad luck,
But the landlord must sit up and worry,
"Has one of my houses been struck?"

As Joe Offer pointed out above in two early recordings from the States, Oscar Brand doesn't sing the "able to work for a living" verse while Fred Hellerman doesn't sing the "thunder clouds" verse. Does anyone have a copy of SONGS FOR SWINGING LANDLORDS TO on TOP 60 in 1961 as sung by Stan Kelly? Or does anyone have the words to the version that the Weavers are said to have recorded? I suppose we could query Pete Seeger or Frank Hamilton or Ronnie Gilbert.

Warm regards,
Landlady's Daughter