The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #131572   Message #2972063
Posted By: Joe Offer
24-Aug-10 - 05:30 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Hard Times (from Harry Boardman)
Subject: Lyr Add: HARD TIMES (Harry Whitehead)
The Harry Boardman recording is on a Topic album called New Voices: an album of first recordings by Harry Boardman, Maureen Craik, and the Waterson Family. Boardman's singing is very hard for me to understand, but I made out enough to be able to Google lyrics that are almost exactly the same. They're from this Website, and also in a book titles Songs of the People: Lancashire Dialect Poetry of the Industrial Revolution, By Brian Hollingworth, available at Google Books

HARD TIMES
(H. B. Whitehead)

Yoh munnut come agen hard times;
We thowt those days were done,
When th' dust lay thick i' th' jinny-gate,
Where the wheels no longer run;
When th' yed-stocks stood like silent ghosts,
And th' straps and ropes were still;
Where o abeawt 'em seemed to say,
"There's nowt to do i' th' mill."

Yoh munnut come agen hard times,
For Owdham's had its share.
When th' purse were thin, and times were bad,
And ther' weren't mich to spare;
When nob'dy axed, or seemed to care,
Heaw were its troubles met?
Thoose wounds lie deep, the scars remain,
The folk remember yet.

Yoh munnut come to haunt these streets,
Where once yoh left your mark;
Where care and want together walked,
Wi' thousands eawt o' wark;
Where daycent men, fro' daycent whoms,
Wi' brocken heart and soul,
Went trudgin' deawn that hopeless road,
To th' means test and the dole.



Notes (from the Dunkerley-Tuson Family Website):