The notation is abc notation - it's the melody and the chords combined (the things in quotes are the actual chords; the other things are a way of giving the melody notes and their durations: the lower case letters are just a different octave from the upper case letters; the > and < are shorthand ways of coding dotted note+half note combinations). It's a concise way of giving melodies in text format, that's relatively readable by humans if you're so inclined!

If you copy the stuff I gave above (everything from X:1 to the drown._) and paste it into the converter box here: Concertina Net - abc converter and press the Submit button, it will convert it to standard notation which you can download as a pdf and will also create midi files which you can download.

abc notation is described here: abc notation home page and the software page there will give you various software packages you can download to display/play it. There are quite a few packages for all platforms.

Here are the words with just the chords:

US POOR FELLOWS
(Peter Bellamy)

Oh the (C)times they are (Am)hard and the (F)wages are (G)poor,
None (C)of us poor (Am)fellows have (F)money in (C)store,
So how (C)can a good (Dm)man keep the (G)wolf from the (Am)door?
Poor (C)fellows we (Dm)all will go (G)down.
When (C)work it is (G)scarce tell me (C)how can we (G)eat?
How (Am)can we af-(Em)ford to buy (F)shoes for our (C)feet?
How (C)can we get (Dm)clothing to (G)keep off the (Am)sleet?
Poor (C)fellows we (G)might as well (C)drown.

If you're still having problems, let me know and I'll see if I can do something more helpful.

Mick