Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes

Subject: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 05:59 PM

Dawn Berg sang this. Anybody got this Cloudstreet song?

The Miner's Washing
[John Warner]

Danny Spooner sang John Warner's song The Miner's Washing in 2017 on his final CD Labour and Toil. The album's liner notes commented:

While working at Coal Creek historical Park in Victoria, John Warner wrote a series of songs Pithead in the Fern (1993) that shows how South Gippsland was opened up for white settlement by the work of black coal miners and those who made and used the railways. This song reminds of the back breaking work of keeping a miner clean.

Lyrics
Danny Spooner sings The Miner's Washing
She came from Durham in 1899,
Married a laddie from the Coal Creek mine,
The finest lad that a girl could ever know,
Till he brought her his washing from the pit below.

Chorus (after each verse):
Scrubbing the miner’s clothes,
Scrubbing the miner’s clothes,
All piled up in a ghastly stack,
Heavy as lead, and smelly and black,
And oh the pain in her aching back,
Scrubbing the miner’s clothes.

Now yer Korumburra miner is a grimy sort of bloke,
So she slings in his duds f...

I'll fix it later.
https://mainlynorfolk.info/danny.spooner/songs/theminerswashing.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 11:00 PM

The song is on John Warner's 1993 album, The Sea and the Soil, FWCD0-44, and it's on the Wlaters and Warner 1993 album, Pithead in the Fern, FWCD042, sung by Margaret Walters on both albums. Margaret sings it first person, "I came from Durham...."

Cloudstreet recorded it in 2006 on the album Dancing up the Sun, CDST04. Danny Spooner has it on his 2016 album, Home, DS016.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 11:03 PM

I have the Labour and Toil album – the song's not on it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: Reinhard
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 11:18 PM

That was a copy&paste error of mine on Mainly Norfolk, sorry. Of course it's on Danny's final album Home. The pages for the other fourteen tracks on Home were correct but Joe chose with precision the one with the error ;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 11:18 PM

Here are the lyrics as Marg sings them on Pithead in the Fern.

3. MINER'S WASHIN'
© John Warner 10/08/92

I came from Durham in '99,
Married a laddie from the Coal Creek mine,
The finest lad that a girl could ever know,
Till he brought me his washin' from the pit below.

Scrubbing the miner's clothes,
Scrubbing the miner's clothes,
All piled up in a ghastly stack,
Heavy as lead, and smelly and black,
And oh the pain in my aching back,
Scrubbing the miner's clothes.

Now your Korumburra miner is a grimy sort of bloke,
So I drop in his duds for an all night soak.
I'll take me a soap and I'll grate it like a cheese,
And I'll chuck it in a bucket with his grubby dungarees.

I get me up before the peep o' light
My copper for to fill and my fire for to light,
I'll serve Tom his crib while the copper's on the boil,
Then gird up my muscles for the day's hard toil.

It's drag 'em from the copper to the rinsing tub,
Pound 'em with the dolly and scrub, scrub, scrub,
Pour away the mucky water, do it all again,
Heave 'em through the wringer and pray it doesn't rain.

Beyond Kardella, the sky's looking fine,
Basket up the washing to the old clothes line,
I'll bet when it's hung out and I've heaved up the prop,
The rain'll come a pourin' and the wind will drop.

Now all you maids who to marriage do incline,
Never wed a laddie from the Coal Creek mine,
A squatter might be surly, a merchant might be mean,
A banker might be boring, but they're easier to clean.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 04 Aug 20 - 03:41 AM

Also recorded by Jenny Fitzgibbon on the 2013 album, For the love of it. There's no record label, but Jenny has a website, jennyfitzgibbon.wordpress.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: Brian Peters
Date: 04 Aug 20 - 09:15 AM

I loved the way Marg Walters sang this!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Margaret Walters
Date: 04 Aug 20 - 09:01 PM

I worked with John Warner in the production of the Pithead in the Fern album (out of print) - and heard Dawn Berg singing The Miner's Washin' at a Zoom session a few weeks ago. John is an exceptional songwriter and I've got the authoritative version of the words of most of his output between 1993-2013.
I've got this "lockdown" project to record John's previously unrecorded output, but haven't got far. John now lives in Murrumbateman and grandparenting and woodwork are priorities at the moment. Contact me for queries about John's songs: [e-mail] - I'll pass those I can't handle on to him. Thanks Gerry and Brian for your input.
PS Gerry - Wlaters is an interesting anagram for Walters, but I prefer Wastrel...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Scrubbing the Miners' Clothes
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 04 Aug 20 - 10:54 PM

Margaret spelled backwards is teragram, which is a unit of mass equal to a trillion (ten-to-the-twelfth) grams, also known as a megatonne.