A rather personal take on the subject - one of MacColl's best IMO
Jim Carroll

E7 THE TENANT FARMER
(1977)

For awhile we had a cottage near Lockerbie in the southern uplands of Scotland. The whole area was a frost pocket and it got more rain than the Lake District. Winter came a month sooner than at Boreland, 4 miles west, and summer departed a month earlier. The Richardsons lived a mile up the road into the pine forest at the foot of the reservoir. The father of the family was a man of very few words, but every one of them well thought out. Even a Hogmanay dram didn't loosen his tongue ... at least not at first. The third Hogmanay broke the pattern. We had been singing bothy songs when he began to talk about his days as a farm servant. Sheep, pigs and cattlebeasts, he had driven them all along the drovers' roads that crossed Jock's Shoulder to Ettrick, that connected Boreland to Moffat. Now he was renting the farm at the end of the Sandyford Road and the market economy was beginning to strangle him. I wrote ÒThe Tenant Farmer' and sang it to him at the next Hogmanay. When he was leaving he shook my hand in both of his and said, ÔAy, that's how it is.' -EM

words and music: Ewan MacColl
© 1977 Ewan MacColl, Ltd.
disc 25

My faither rented a piece o' land, it was on the Carrick border;
And he spent damn near a' his fifty years tryin' to get the land in order.
Snaw and hail and winter gale, he couldna get nae rest,
He was just anither strugglin' tenant fairmer.

That wee bit fairm was ill tae wark, it was coarse red clay and boulder;
But at blink o' day he'd be up the brae wi' the north wind at his shoulder.
Plowin', sowin', reapin', hoein', wrastlin' wi' the clay,
He was just anither daft-like tenant fairmer.

The land was choked wi' whin and dock and the broom it took some shiftin';
So he tore and chaved and he howked and slaved at the pu'in and the liftin'.
Wark and sweat and rent and debt and wife and bairns to feed,
He was aye a weary, worried tenant fairmer.

Through the clay that had wheeled in the coulter's trace the young green corn cam' peepin';
And the barley thrived and the corn grew high and we a' helped wi' the reapin';
August through and neeps tae pu', there's aye a job tae dae
When you're a single-handed tenant fairmer.

But for a' the years o' his toil and sweat and the never-ending battle,
He couldnae pay the bank ae day so they selt off a' his cattle.
He damned the clay and cursed the day that ever he worked the land,
The day that he became a tenant fairmer.

Well, what wi' the cost o' the feedin' stuff and the landlord's rent increases,
They turned us oot and they held a roup o' a' our bits and pieces.
Your fairm's owre sma', nae use at a', and the owner needs the land,
Times are changed, we dinnae need a tenant fairmer.

Noo, he's workin' on an assembly line, it's a queer-like situation,
For he works like hell makin' things that sell for cash tae feed the nation.
It helps to buy the corn and rye and the kind o' crops he raised,
When he was working as a tenant fairmer.


a'                ...        all                        dinna                ...        don't
ae                ...        one                        howked                ...        dug
aye                ...        always                        neeps                ...        turnips
bairns                ...        children                owre sma'        ...        too small
brae                ...        small hill                pu'in'                ...        pulling
chaved                ...        separated the chaff        roup                ...        auction
coulter                ...        plough-blade                whin                 ...        gorse

The Tenant Farmer