Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Image of God (One Miner's Life)
From:
Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 18 - 11:29 PM
OK, I found it on the 1988 Battlefield Band album titled There's a Buzz. It's track 9, titled "One Miner's Life / The Image of God." I don't find it on YouTube, but it is available on Spotify. This thread (click) focuses on the Battlefield Band version of "One Miner's Life," but does not have lyrics for "The Image of God" - but The Image of God by Joe Corrie is in the Digital Tradition. Guess we'll have to work out a transcription of the Battlefield Band recording to work out the fine points.
-Joe-
Here are the Digital Tradition lyrics for "The Image of God":
IMAGE OF GOD
(Joe Corrie)
Crawlin' aboot like a snail in the mud,
Covered wi' clammy blae,
ME, made after the image o' God -
Jings! But it's laughable, tae.
Howkin' awa' 'neath a mountain o' stane,
Gaspin' for want o' air,
The sweat makin' streams doon my bare back-banes,
And my knees a' hauckit and sair.
Strainin' and cursin' the hale shift through,
Half-starved, half-blin', half-mad,
And the gaffer he says, "Less dirt in that coal
Or ye go up the pit, my lad."
So I gie my life tae the Nimmo squad
For eicht and fower a day.
Me! Made after the image o' God -
Jings! But it's laughable, tae.
Words by Joe Corrie, tune by Alan Reid.
From The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, 1970.
Recorded by the Battlefield Band.
@work
filename[ IMAGEGOD
XX
July01
And Suzanne's transcription of "One Miner's Life:
Thread #39967 Message #570038
Posted By: Susanne (skw)
11-Oct-01 - 04:50 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: One Miner's Life (Ed Pickford)
Subject: Lyr Add: ONE MINER'S LIFE (Ed Pickford)
ONE MINER'S LIFE
(Ed Pickford)
Chorus:
Who knows who you're crying for
Who knows who made us so poor
Who knows what you're gonna be
Who knows what's in store for ye
Now you are born, another to feed
Small are your wants lad, but great is your need
For work is scarce, your dad's on the dole
They want no more men for they've got too much coal
Now you're a boy, you play in the streets
Fish in the burn and performin' great feats
While the pitheaps stand, markin' the graves
Of fathers adn sons and the lives that they gave
Now you've left school, a man at thirteen
Your mother is grim as she looks on the scene
As she makes up your bait, you're off doon below
And awa' to the pit wi' your father you go
Now you're a man, you work in the mine
Wi' fightin' and strugglin', you're old 'fore your time
For the work it's hard, conditions are bad
And you've promised your son all the things you never had
Now you are old, you've worked all you can
But they're closin' the pits and you're part of a plan
To cut out waste and make the mines pay
So to hell wi' you now lad, and be on your way
Not checked, but I think it's fairly accurate for the Battlefield Band version. Some Info:
[1975:] Written by the talented Ed Pigford [sic!], Co. Durham, some two or three years ago. This song won the North East Folk Federation's annual songwriting competition. The son of a miner, Pigford obviously had his eye on men of his father's generation in composing this song. It is a fairly accurate assessment of the life and prospects of miners of that generation, the hard work often leading to pneumocconiosis and the dole as Lord Alfred Robens' period of closure and demoralisation of the industry shut down the bulk of Co. Durham's pits. (Notes 'The Bonnie Pit Laddie')
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