Songs about the 'end of an era'

Subject: Songs about the "end of an era"'
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 11:54 AM

I would like to request help identifying songs about the end of an era -- a common trade, activity, etc. that ends due to industrial change, resource depletion, etc. For example Peggin' Awl, Archie Fisher's Final Trawl, and Shelly Posen's No More Fish, No Fishermen. Perhaps about farming, hand weaving? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 12:30 PM

How about Steve Goodman's The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over?

Goodman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ_3wJuLIdk

Highwaymen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeF32GNl6gw

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 12:37 PM

Dave Webber seems to like songs of this genre:

Old Fid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJkVHo7pfko

Old Figurehead Carver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQDidlCht0

Last Trip Home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I_BV0fD0N0

I'll bet he's done more.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 01:17 PM

Would The Weaver and the Factory Maid be along the right lines? even if there's doubts about its provenance.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 01:41 PM

Kay Sutcliffe, the wife of a miner from the Kent coal-fields, wrote the poem Coal Not Dole during the mid-80s dispute between the Conservative government of Maggie Thatcher and the miners' unions.

Coope Boyes and Simpson sang this to the tune of "See, Amid the Winter's Snow", an English Christmas carol, written by Edward Caswall and first published in 1858. In 1871 Sir John Goss composed a hymn tune for it, "Humility".

It stands so proud, the wheel so still, A ghostlike figure on the hill.
It seems so strange, there is no sound, Now there are no men underground.
What will become of this pit yard? Where men once trampled faces hard?
Tired and weary, their shift done, Never having seen the sun.

Shelley Posen based his song No More Fish, No Fishermen on the Coope Boyes and Simpson version of the song.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 01:46 PM

Archie Fisher wrote The Final Trawl “inspired by a pair of rusting decommissioned trawlers off Scrabster Harbour” and recorded it in the 1970s for an album on Tommy Makem and Lian Clancy's Blackbird label that was never released. Several decades later the recording masters were rediscovered, and he included this and some other songs as bonus tracks of his 2008 album Windward Away. It was also included in 2009 on the Greentrax anthology People and Songs of the Sea. Archie Fisher also sang it in 1988 on his album with Garnet Rogers, Off the Map, where he noted:

The death of a boat is the first casualty in the decline of a fishing community. This song is dedicated to all of the hardy fisherfolk at sea and ashore.

Now it's three long years since we made her pay
    Sing haul away, my laddie-o
And the owners say that she's had her day
    And sing haul away, my laddie-o

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,Bruce
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 01:58 PM

Thanks folks, these suggestions are great, just what I was looking for. While listening to Last Trip Home I also thought of Stan Rogers song Last Watch on the Midland, and the line ... "in the morning Lord, I would prefer, when men with torches come for her, the angels come for me."

I would like to put together an "end of an era" set, but honestly don't know if I could make it through so much nostalgia and loss in one go.

Thanks again ... Bruce

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 02:11 PM

"Our Town" by Iris Dement

And you know the sun's setting fast
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts
Go on now and kiss it goodbye
But hold on to your lover 'cause your heart's bound to die
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town
Can't you see the sun's setting down on our town, on our town
Goodnight

"Now That The Buffalo's Gone" by Buffy Sainte-Marie

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 03:15 PM

Clydesdale Horses - The last trip home - Battlefield Band

Song about the time when tractors replaced these gentle giants.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stanron
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 03:20 PM

Quote;

I would like to put together an "end of an era" set, but honestly don't know if I could make it through so much nostalgia and loss in one go.

The end of an era need not be a downer. Are there no songs of people who have survived bad times? Doesn't 'From Hull and Halifax and Hell' end with escape from the three H's? There must be songs about people who have escaped or been released from slavery.

Also Amazing Grace and Spencer the rover, (Imagine those two getting together!) are songs of redemption. Would those fit? Any others?

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,Bruce
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 03:40 PM

Stanron -- I do sing Spencer the Rover and other songs that end in redemption or at least an uplifting turn. But my intent with "end of an era" is to highlight those significant events -- hinges in time perhaps and event -- when the world (at least the world for some common folk) took a turn in different direction and left them behind (or threatened to, at least.) That is why it is potentially such a downer. Perhaps it is not a good idea to string them together in a killer set.

I have tried to avoid death as a hinge event. Too focused and personal I think.

But perhaps a song like Stan Rogers First Christmas Away From Home is sufficiently broad, about loss of home? (Garnet Rogers referred to it as a double hanky song, and I have never tried to sing it in public.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chTMOuuUZi4

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 04:40 PM

Lochaber No More

Farewell to Lochaber, farewell to my Jean
Where heartsome wi' her I ha'e many day days been
For Lochaber no more, we'll maybe return
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.

These tears that I shed, they are a' for my dear,
An' no' for the dangers attending on weir,
Tho' bourne on rough seas to a far distant shore,
May be return to Lochaber no more.

The poem appeared in Ramsey's Tea Table Miscellany of 1724, though the tune was not actually printed with the words until Thompson's Orpheus Caledonius in 1733. "Lochaber No More" was requested by Queen Victoria during her 1842 visit to Taymouth Castle for a recital by one of the most celebrated singers of Scots songs of the time, John Wilson.

The Leaving of Liverpool

"The Leaving of Liverpool" was first collected by William Main Doerflinger from Richard Maitland, whose repertoire he recorded at Sailors' Snug Harbor in Staten Island from 1938 to 1940. At the time, Doerflinger was an independent collector, recording the songs of sailors and lumbermen out of personal interest. In early 1942, Doerflinger found another version sung by a retired sailor, Captain Patrick Tayluer, who was living at the Seamen's Church Institute at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan.

Farewell to Princes' landing stage, River Mersey fare thee well
I am bound for California, a place I know right well
So fare thee well my own true love
When I return united we will be
It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me
But my darling when I think of thee

Leave Her, Johnny

In his book Shanties from the Seven Seas, Stan Hugill printed verses of Leave Her, Johnny as a halyard and as a pump shanty. He wrote: And now we come to the 'Johnny' song that usually ended the voyage - Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her! Its function was that of airing grievances just prior to the completion of the voyage either when warping the vessel in through the locks or at the final spell of the pumps (in wooden ships) after the vessel had docked. Many unprintable stanzas were sung, directed at the afterguard, the grub, and the owners. Bullen writes that: “to sing it before the last day or so was almost tantamount to mutiny.”

Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her!
For the voyage is done and the winds don't blow,
And it's time for us to leave her!

Recall Words & Music by Tom Lewis (Recorded by Tom Lewis on Surfacing!)

Long decades past without the worksongs roaring to the sky,
And sailormen upon the beach could only wonder why,
Those graceful ships of yesteryear no more would greet their eye,
Washed up like flotsam was the shantyman.

But now once more the great square-riggers sail the oceans wide,
Those tall ships filled with green, young sailors working side by side,
The old songs ringing-out again, the shanties never died,
Hoist Blue Peter for the shantyman,
Blue Peter's hoisted for the shantyman.

Shantyman by Bob Watson

Now modern ships carry mighty funny gear,
And away, get away, you shantyman.
Ain't seen a halyard in many's a year,
An' they got no use for a shantyman.

Shantyman, oh, shantyman,
Who's got a berth for a shantyman?
Sing you a song of a world gone wrong,
When they got no use for a shantyman.

STANLEY ACCRINGTON's most widely-covered song, Last Train, is an elegy for the lost railways of his native Lancashire.

Down the Rossendale Valley on a sultry warm day
The clanking of wheels echoes on
But it's all in my mind, when I wake up I find
That the last train from Bacup is gone

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Newport Boy
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 04:58 PM

Ewan MacColl's "Come all you gallant colliers"

Come all you gallant colliers wherever you may be
Whether you work the Rhondda or in the North country
All you who burrow in the rock or dirt to earn your pay
They say your time has almost come and that coal has had its day.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 05:32 PM

The Island Men (Shipyard Slips) (1977)

A song about the decline of the Belfast shipyards and exile, written by Dave Scott (David Wilde) who was a member of the group Men Of No Property. Originally called ‘The Island Men’, but later re-titled as ‘Shipyard Slips’. On a ship that was built for the tourist trade - a reference to tourism in Northern Ireland being destroyed by the troubles.

From: Mudcat Guest, Jim McCullough; This song, originally titled "The Island Men", referred to the shipyard workers at Queen's Island, where Harland and Wolfe shipyard used to be in Belfast. The first verse and the chorus were written by Dave Scott (pseudonymously David Wilde) and the rest was written by Brian "Whoriskey", as it appeared on the record sleeve. Brian Whoriskey was also a pseudonym, because that's what you did in Belfast at the time, if you were writing republican AND non-sectarian, socialist songs. Brian Moore was the real name of the author of most of the song.

From Belfast town I'm on my way
On a ship that was built for the tourist trade
I leave behind the land where I was born
And I won't come back till me fortune is made

And I served me time with the Island men
And I've known good times and work aplenty
But there's no work now in these troubled times
And the shipyard slips they're lying empty

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 05:41 PM

The Thirty-Foot Trailer A.L. Lloyd commented in the The Waterson's sleeve notes:

A jaunty song written by Ewan MacColl for his 1964 radio ballad about gypsies and didikais, The Travelling People. The song is a lament, though not a heavy hearted one, for the old days and the picturesque old ways, the canting tongue, the horse-dealing, the clothes-peg whittling, the hawking of artificial flowers.

Inexorably the forces of economic and social change force the black-eyed, quick-fingered van-dwellers from the roads of Britain, once their birthright and heritage and it is only rarely, now, that one sees a battered waggon by the side of a busy road and a white horse nibbling the grass and leisurely swishing its tail as if it had all the time in the world. The Watersons swing out a tribute to their passing. (Mainly Norfolk)

The old ways are changing, you cannot deny,
The day of the traveller is over;
There's nowhere to go and there's nowhere to bide,
So farewell to the life of the rover.

Chorus:
Farewell to the tent and the old caravan,
To the tinker, the Gypsy, the travelling man
And farewell to the thirty-foot trailer.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 05:58 PM

There are lots of Ray Davies songs that could be said to be about the ends of eras, perhaps most obviously 'Last of the Steam-powered Trains'.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GerryM
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 08:09 PM

Jez Lowe's song, Galloways, about the pit ponies after the pits were abandoned.
Si Kahn's song, Aragon Mill, about the town of Aragon, Georgia, after the mill shut down.
Jean Ritchie's song, The L & N Don't Stop Here Any More:

For I was born and raised at the mouth of the Hazard Holler
Coal cars roaring and a tumbling past my door
Now they're standing rusty, rolling empty
And the L & N don't stop here any more

Sam Richards' song, Goodbye to Saint Lawrence, chronicles the end of two industries, fishing and mining. Here's one stanza:

When my old feller had breathed his last breath
Like the others who suffered 'longside him
The Company flooded the mines and pulled out
Too few dollars in St. Lawrence mining
Too few dollars in St. Lawrence mining

Matt Armour's song, Generations of Change, absolutely first-rate song.

Archie Fisher's song, Final Trawl:

Now it's three long years since we made her pay
Sing haul away, my laddie-o
And the owners say that she's had her day
And sing haul away, my laddie-o

Stan Rogers, Make and Break Harbour:

In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
Too many are holed up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten

Another Stan Rogers song, Free in the Harbour:

Free in the Harbor; The Blackfish are sporting again
Free in the Harbor; Untroubled by comings and goings of men
Who once did pursue them as oil from the sea,
Hauling away! Hauling away!
Now they\re Calgary roughnecks from Hermitage Bay,
Where the whales make free in the harbor.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: BobL
Date: 31 Aug 22 - 03:14 AM

"The Old Rosemary", about a derelict narrowboat.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 31 Aug 22 - 03:51 AM

Good Time Flat Blues (Farewell to Storyville) (Spencer Williams)
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues (Danny O'Keefe)
Texas 1947 (Guy Clark)
The Last Gunfighter Ballad (ditto)

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: gillymor
Date: 31 Aug 22 - 04:21 AM

New Speedway Boogie by the Grateful Dead regarding the tragic Altamont Festival was said to be about the end of "the sixties" and the hippie era and that notion was somewhat supported by the lyricist Robert Hunter.

Peg and Awl told of hand work being replaced by automation at the outset of the Industrial Revolution.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: gillymor
Date: 31 Aug 22 - 04:31 AM

Did anyone mention John Henry and all it's variants.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Aug 22 - 03:35 PM

The Rare Ould Times - https://youtu.be/9T7OaDDR7i8 , Ronnie Drew singing it. Breaks your heart, and lifts your spirit.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Neil D
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 04:53 PM

"Daddy, What's a Train?" by Utah Phillips

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: pattyClink
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 05:02 PM

Brendan Nolan's "Old Ned" about horse drawn milk carts in Dublin. Beautiful melody, wish it had been applied to a love song!

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: StephenH
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 05:31 PM

I've always thought it interesting that "Peg and Awl" seems to be one of the few songs where the new technology is welcomed by the craftperson.
Of course, the tone may just be of resignation:

PEG AND AWL

In the year of eighteen and one
Peg and awl
In the year of eighteen and one
Peg and awl
In the year of eighteen and one
Peggin' shoes was all I done
Hand me down my peg, my peg and awl.

In the year of eighteen and two
Peggin' shoes was all I'd do.
Hand me down etc.

They invented a new machine,
Prettiest thing I ever seen.
Throw away etc...

Pegs a hundred pair to my one
Peggin' shoes it ain't no fun,
Throw away etc.

In the year of eighteen and three
New machine it set me free.
Throw away etc.

In the year of eighteen and four,
Swore I'd peg them shoes no more.
Throw away etc.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: pattyClink
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 06:47 PM

HenryP, that's an awesome song that deserves more playing "Shipyard Slips". Thanks for reminding us.

Lots of good songs in this thread. Okay, so one does need to temper the despondent ones with others more uplifting. But still, there is some great craftsmanship from writers striving to say something about a passing age.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Sep 22 - 11:20 PM

I've long had a fondness for this one:

In these hard times

You can listen to Roy Bailey's rendition here:

Click

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 08:35 AM

Patty - I hope you like this! Shipyard Slips

The Shipyard Slips by John Doyle and Karan Casey From Exiles Return 2010.

It's a great album by a wonderful duo!

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 09:50 AM

Not the end of a human era, but an animal one- The Last Leviathan.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 07:18 PM

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 10:06 PM

I hate to see this town go down

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 10:27 PM

The Sky

Memories

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 10:35 PM

Requiem for steam

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 10:52 PM

We can't make it here anymore

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 11:17 PM

Before they close the minstrel show

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 12:01 AM

The last wagon

--Stewie.

Subject: The end of an era: A Proper Sort of Gardener
From: GUEST,Holociraptor mendonesiensis
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 01:10 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUSywYlrrV8

Subject: The World Turned Upside Down
From: GUEST,Holociraptor mendonesiensis
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 01:20 AM

The World Turned Upside Down, by Leon Rosselson. I particularly like this live version by Dick Gaughan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWzzvnPOyTM

Subject: Is this the way the legend of the redwood ends?
From: GUEST,The Redwood Blues
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 01:26 AM

The Redwood Blues
Tune: Mournin’ Blues, by Uncle Dave Macon

After agreeing to a moratorium on logging in Jackson State Forest, Calfire is allowing the logging companies back in. Activists traveled to Sacramento; six of them were arrested this week. (On purpose. "What's a person got to do to get arrested around here?" asked Anna Marie Stenberg after one 4 am anti-logging action in the Forest

I wrote:


Woke up this morning, pain in my head
Wished I could crawl right back in bed
Pain in my back, pain in my knees
But I’m still gonna go and protect them trees.
        I got the redwood blues oh so bad
        Honey come an' hug me, they’re the worst I've ever had.

I wanna take a walk, I wanna take a hike
Wanna take a ride on my ‘lectric bike
But I’m gonna sit here beneath this tree,
And read a three-hundred-page THP.
                Timber Harvest Plan. But I can’t
                Understand how you can harvest something you didn’t plant.
                How can you harvest something you didn’t plant?

Buzz of a chainsaw gives me a chill,
Another truckload of trees headin’ to the mill.
Staring at stumps, me an' my friends
Is this the way the legend of the redwood ends?

        I got the redwood blues, oh so bad
        Honey come an' hug me, they’re the worst I've ever had
        Honey come an' kiss me, they’re the worst I've ever had
        Honey come an'…..

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 10:08 AM

Songs of a Changing World Jon Raven, Nic Jones, Tony Rose
Trailer LER 2083 (LP, UK, 1973)

Side 1        
1 [JR] The Rosemary
2 [JR] Wedgefield Wakes
3 [JR] Travelling People
4 [JR] The Bad Squire
5 [JR] The Lancashire Lads (Roud 588; G/D 1:89)
6 [TR] Wife for Sale
Side 2
7 [JR] Poverty Knock (Roud 3491; TYG 14)
8 [JR] The Grinders
9 [JR] Hold the Fort (Roud 1774)
10 [NJ] The Nailmaker's Strike
11 [TR] Jolly Joe the Collier's Son (Roud 1129)
12 [NJ] You Won't Get Me Down in Your Mine
13 [JR] The Blantyre Explosion (Roud 1014; Laws Q35)

Track 1 Pete Dodds;
Tracks 2-3, 6 trad., Jon Raven;
Track 4 Charles Kingsley, Jon Raven;
Track 5 trad. Dave Moran, Nic Jones;
Track 7 Tom Daniel coll. A.E. Green 1965;
Track 8 Jon Raven, trad.;
Track 9 anon., Jon Raven;
Tracks 10-11 trad., Michael Raven;
Track 12 Colin Wilkie;
Track 13 trad.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 11:28 AM

We Work the Black Seam by Sting

This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It's hard for us to understand
We can't give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunnelled deep inside the nation's soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense

One day in a nuclear age
They may understand our rage
They build machines that they can't control
And bury the waste in a great big hole
Power was to become cheap and clean
Grimy faces were never seen
Deadly for 12,000 years
Is carbon 14

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

Subject: Rearranging Deck Chairs
From: GUEST,Holociraptor
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 03:22 PM

Does this qualify? It was sad when that great ship went down...

Rearranging Deck Chairs
Words © 2021 Holly
Tune: The Handsome Cabin Boy

The crew are winching lifeboats down into the freezing sea
The band is on the boat deck playing Nearer My God To Thee
I’m in charge of maintenance and cleaning and repairs,
The Captain yells, “Go up on deck and rearrange the chairs.”

A thousand squealing Norway rats are leaping off the side
But I’m not going to follow them, a workman has his pride.
The jewel-bedazzled heiresses and self-made millionaires
Are crowding into lifeboats as I rearrange the chairs.

They’ve locked the doors to steerage so the poor folk can’t get out
“There isn’t room for all of you,” I heard the Captain shout.
The Irish and Italian are all kneeling, saying prayers
While up here on the quarterdeck I’m rearranging chairs.

Subject: Rearranging Deck Chairs complete
From: GUEST, Forgotaraptor
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 03:28 PM

Gack. I left out the intro and the second verse.


During the pandemic, I binge-watched The Titanic
Saw the captain and the crew do stupid things and panic.
Saw the great ship split in half and sink below the sea,
Ate my buttered popcorn and was glad it wasn’t me.
                                                                           

Rearranging Deck Chairs
Tune: The Handsome Cabin Boy


The crew are winching lifeboats down into the freezing sea.
The band is on the boat deck playing "Nearer My God To Thee."
I am an able seaman charged with maintenance and repairs,
The bos'n says, “Go up on deck and rearrange the chairs.”

He thinks they’ve fallen over so I have to go and check
And bring a bucket and a mop so I can swab the deck.
The ship is slowly sinking while the boilers steam and smoke,
I gaze around and wonder if there isn’t something broke.

A thousand squealing Norway rats are diving off the side
But I’m not going to follow them, a worker has his pride.
The jewel-bedazzled heiresses and self-made millionaires
Are crowding into lifeboats as I rearrange the chairs.

They’ve locked the doors to steerage so the poor folks can’t get out
“There isn’t room for all of you,” I heard the Captain shout.
The Irish and Italian are all kneeling, saying prayers
While up here on the quarterdeck I’m rearranging chairs.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,Anonymous Traveler
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 07:13 PM

Utah Phillips "Look For Me In Butte" is somewhat apropos. The whole song's relevant, more or less but I particularly like the fragment from the second verse:

{
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the jungle fires have died
Piggyback containers, there's no place a 'bo can ride
All the bulls are gettin' surly, seems they're more inclined to shoot
I'm tired of bein' civilized so look for me in Butte
}

To a lesser extent, Utah's whole catalog more or less. I'll also throw "Gonna Leave Old Texas Now" on the pile

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Sep 22 - 01:47 AM

Riley Boys

No more fish

-- Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Sep 22 - 01:53 AM

Rock the machine

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 05 Sep 22 - 06:10 AM

Paradise by John Prine

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

And Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,limulus
Date: 16 Feb 23 - 03:53 AM

Songs about lighthouse automation:
John McCutcheon's 'Old Brown's Head Light' &
'Keeper of the Light' as sung by Lee Murdock

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 04:58 AM

The Coming of the Roads by Billy Edd Wheeler

You used to curse the bold crewmen
Who stripped our earth of its ore
Now, you've changed and you've gone over to them
And you've learned to love what you hated before

Once I thanked God for my treasure
Now like rust it corrodes
And I can't help from blamin' your goin'
On the coming, the coming of the roads

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 05:18 AM

Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day,
Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?

Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!

Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.

Compare with 'The Skye Boat Song', words written by Sir Harold Edwin Boulton in the 1870s. (He also wrote the words to 'Glorious Devon'.)

The song tells the tale of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Prince Charles Edward Stuart and grandson of James II and VII of Scotland) and his flight from Benbecula to the Isle of Skye, following his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. It was the final attempt by the Stuarts to reclaim the throne after their last monarch Queen Anne died, at which point the crown was then passed to George I from Hanover. Bonnie Prince Charlie's supporters, however, believed he was the rightful heir to the throne.

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 05:53 AM

In north Lancashire, many lives have been lost crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay to reach the Furness peninsula. The tide comes in at the speed of a galloping horse. Once you can hear it, it is too late to escape! The route fords the River Kent and the River Leven, and there are quicksands and deep pools along the way.

In 1857, the railway opened between Ulverston and Carnforth, crossing the Kent and Leven on long viaducts, and providing a faster and safer route to Furness. Sadly, people still drown on the sands today. In 2004, at least 21 illegal Chinese immigrants were drowned by the incoming tide while harvesting cockles.

Between Sea and Land – A Trip to the Whitsuntide Fair by Henry Peacock

Tune; Rambleaway as sung by Roger Wilson. Performed by the Albion Band on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_0LBEbiVhU

Twice every day the tide fills Morecambe Bay
Sweeping aside anything in its way
Ellen and Thomas worked on Flookburgh sands
Reaping the harvest between sea and land

Ellen, my darling girl, Thomas then said
It won’t be long now before we are wed
And friends and relations come from far and wide
To watch as we walk down the aisle side by side

Chorus; Sailors take to the sea, others never leave land
        But in Flookburgh the folk lead their lives on the sand

In Ulverston we’ll find the Whitsuntide Fair
We’ll take all our friends and we’ll have some fun there
And so they set off at the break of the day
Over the sands that surround Morecambe Bay

Thomas bought Ellen a new dress to wear
A ring for her finger and a bow for her hair
The sun was going down at the end of the day
As they departed on their homeward way

Chorus

The sands hold great dangers for wandering souls
Where the rush of the tide carves out steep-sided holes
Their cart in the dark, I am sorry to say
Was heading towards a deep pool in their way

Early next morning nine bodies were found
The coroner pronounced his verdict of drowned
Who thought that a day that began so carefree
Would end on the sands in such dark tragedy?

Chorus

At noon on the Sunday the muffled church bells
Sadly rang over the grey Furness Fells
And friends and relations came from far and wide
As Ellen and Thomas were laid side by side

Twice every day the tide fills Morecambe Bay
Sweeping aside anything in its way
Today as you cross the sands safely by train
Remember those poor souls whose trip was in vain

Chorus;        Sailors take to the sea, others never leave land
        But in Flookburgh the folk live and die on the sand

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 06:08 AM

Matt Armour's "Generations of Change".

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: meself
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 11:39 AM

I would have thought that three-quarters of the Folk songs written since 1970 are about the end of an era .... Personally, I always liked John Hartford's The Goodle Days:

Some day about twenty-five years from now,
When we've all grown old from a-wonderin' how,
We'll all sit down at the city dump,
And talk about the goodle days.
I'll pass a joint, and you'll pass some wine,
And anything good from down the line;
A lot of good things went down one time,
Back in the goodle days.

Something like that, anyway.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: cnd
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 09:59 PM

Drop every country song written after 1985 and pick one out of a hat, 90% chance it's about the end of "real" America/country music/country life/any generic whataboutism

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 05:05 AM

Now that the buffalo's gone by Buffy Sainte-Marie (1964)

Oh, it's all in the past you can say
But it's still going on here today
The government now want the Iroquois land
That of the Senaca and the Cheyenne
It's here and it's now you can help us dear man
Now that the buffalo's gone.

Subject: RE: Songs about the 'end of an era'
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 03:45 PM

Kilkelly, by Peter jones