Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: THE NEW ROCKS OF BAUN (MacColl)
From:
John in Brisbane
Date: 13 Oct 99 - 11:42 PM
This is MacColl's version, written I believe as part of his BBC Radio Ballads. His lyrics are quite pithy, but otherwise it's fairly typical of the many other ballads about Irish displacement/emigration. I like it. Regards, John.
PS I believe that the BBC is re-releasing the Radio Ballads on CD. Anyone know more about this please?
THE NEW ROCKS OF BAUN
Your foot is on the third-class deck, your eye is on the shore.
And there's men from Cork and Limerick and Kerry by the score:
From Dublin, Galway, Waterford and Donegal they're drawn,
For a man can't feed his family if he ploughs the Rocks of Baun.
You're standing in the station, your suitcase in your hand,
Wondering what's in store for you now you've left your native land;
There's strangers all around you and you feel so damned forlorn
That you wish you'd stayed in Ireland to plough the Rocks of Baun
So you're dossin' in some hostel or else you're bedded down
In a house that's crumbling away in the cheapest part of town;
But you scarcely ever see the place, for you're off at the break of dawn,
And the hours you're putting in each day would plough the Rock of Baun
My curse attend you, Sweeney, you have my courage robbed;
For you're the gangerman and l am the labourer on the job;
When you laugh then we all must laugh and all must bear your scorn,
Or it's "Get your cards and off with you to plough the Rock of Baun".
The landlords and their bailiffs, sure their hearts were hard as stones,
They picked old Ireland's carcass bare arc only left the bones;
Now as agents and as gangermen our tyrants are reborn,
And they ride upon our shoulders as we plough the Rocks of Baun
There's a week's wage in your pocket and a hard week's work behind,
And you're seeking recreation with folks of your own kind
For just to eat and work and sleep, sure, man was never born,
And the foaming pints help you forget the damned old Rocks of Baun
They talk abut our drinking and the money that we get,
But every penny that we're paid is earned with toil and sweat;
There's many a true-born Irishman, bowed-down, worked-out and worn
Too old to work at forty - he's ploughed the Rocks of Baun
I've worked with pick and shovel on Loch Rannoch's hydro-dam;
I've laid cement in the Isle of Grain and the bull-ring, Birmingham;
I've tunnelled in the London clay, through the hard stuff 1 have torn,
And still 1 haven't found a way to plough the Rocks of Baun
I'11 find some lonesome valley and live there all alone,
Some tired old navvies' paradise, where shovels are unknown,
Where agents never see the light an gangers stay unborn
And no man is expected to plough the Rocks of Baun.
MIDI file: newrocks.mid Timebase: 120 TimeSig: 6/8 12 8
Key: F
Tempo: 075 (800000 microsec/crotchet)
Name: The New Rocks Of Baun
Start
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End This program is worth the effort of learning it. To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here ABC format: X:1
T:The New Rocks Of Baun
M:6/8
Q:1/4=75
K:F
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