Help: Farming Songs

Subject: Farming Songs
From: Hames
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 01:33 PM

Hi, I'm new here. I teach farm education, and am working on a compilation of songs about farming, farm animals, farm activities, etc. Any era is fine, any suggestions are welcome. I'm trying to reconnect kids with the importance of the land in their lives, and music has certainly celebrated it through the years, Thanks.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: 2feathers
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 02:28 PM

Check out a song sung by Pete Seeger (I don't know who wrote it) called "Equinoxial," or perhaps "Equinoxial and Phoebe." (The women in your class will love it.) Or how about "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine"? Or the one that begins, "Inch by inch, row by row, gotta make this garden grow, someone bless them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling down...." (I'm sure the song writer is still alive and can claim it and finish it.") More later when my weary head clears.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 03:12 PM

Four Wet Pigs - a little humor.
Dona Dona
How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down On The Farm After They've Seen Paree?

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: GUEST,Nancy-Jean
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 03:24 PM

Welcome! Your best bet is a recording done by Vermont's Margaret MacArthur. This is "right up your alley". Contact her for more information: [e-mail]

Here are the songs:

Almanac of New England Farm Songs, Green Linnet SIF 1039 (1982)

SIDE A

OUR FOREFATHERS' SONG (The Hardships and Fare of the First Planters in New England)
MAPLE SWEET (Vermont Sugar Maker's Song)
WHEN THE WINDS IN THE WEST/SIROP/OLD ROAK * TO THE LISTERS OF CHARLESTOWN, NEW HAMPSHIRE * SWARM OF BEES
SHEARING DAY
THE VERMONT FARMER'S SONG
POUND OF TOW/WIMBLE BOW RIDDLE/LINKTEM BLUE
OLD MR. GRUMBLE
OLD SPECKEL

SIDE B

OH THE RUM, THE RUM/ONE FOR THE CUTWORM
YOUNG MAN WHO WOULDN'T HOE CORN
HUCKABRIDGE BREAD/COME BUTTER COME/HOT HORSESHOE/BUTTERMILK AND WHEY
SPRINGFIELD MOUNTAIN
THE MILLER
THE MILLER'S WILL
USE IT UP
ROLLING STONE
SNOW LIKE MEAL/IT SNOWS, IT BLOWS/DRIED APPLE PIES
JONES' PARING BEE
FIFTY YEARS AGO

She also can tell you about other farm songs. Good luck!

Nancy-Jean

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: 2feathers
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 03:33 PM

The Farmer is the Man

Look for Elie Siegmeister's very old book Songs that Build America for this one.

The Boll Weevil

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 03:37 PM

For very young ones: Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow; Oleanna

Subject: Lyr Add: DOWN ON PENNY'S FARM^^
From: Mark Clark
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 04:07 PM

Pete Seeger recorded this one though I'm not sure I still remember all the verses.

      - Mark



Down On Penny's Farm

Come you ladies and you gentlemen and listen to my song,
I'll sing it to you right but you might think it's wrong,
It may make you mad but I mean no harm,
It's all about the renters on Penny's farm.

Refrain:
    Hard times in the country, down on Penny's farm.

Well here's George Penny coming into town,
With a wagon load of peaches, not one of 'em sound,
He's got to have is money or somebody's check,
You pay him for a bushel and you don't get a peck.

(Refrain)

Well you move on out to Penny's farm,
Plant a little crop o 'bacco and little crop o corn,
He'll come around and he'll plan and plot,
Til he gets himself a mortgage on everything you got.

(Refrain)

---

Click for complete lyrics in related thread

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 04:16 PM

How about our very own Barky's "Down on Barky's Farm" in the song book? Also, it is classical and modern, but John Rutter (I think!!) wrote a choral piece called "Seeds Grow to Plants".

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Max Tone
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 04:52 PM

The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre - Andy Stewart, I think.
There are hundreds of Scottish Bothy and Border ballads, in many case written by farmhands - so there's a couple of rich seams.
Try to get hold of Jock Duncan's recordings of Doric (NE Scotland) bothy ballads/stories. Sorry, not sure which label, but I'm sure there's a recent CD still available. Try Greentrax?
I've only one semi-suitable song here -"Pawkie Patterson" - a Hawick song about a dying farm horse moaning about the way she's been treated. Recorded by Deaf Shepherd on Synergy (Greentrax CDTRAX 143), written (or transcribed) by John Ballantine. Will format and post, if required.
Good luck, Rob

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Max Tone
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 05:13 PM

Just found a listing on another thread for farmsongs.
My first Blickie, so I hope this works :- Click here
Fingers crossed, Rob

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 05:54 PM

Here's a few more Scots and English:

Drumdelgie
The Lothian Harvest
The Band o Shearers
Harvest Hone
Johnnie Sangster
The Barnyards o Delgaty
The Farm Servant
The Mower
I Be a Farmer Boy
Jock Hawk's Adventures in Glasgow
The Overgate
Chickens in the Garden (recorded by the Watersons)

A lot of the above were recorded by Ewan MacColl on his bothy ballads LPs.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Margaret V
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 05:58 PM

We had a thread on this back in February, though not specifically geared for children. Type "farm folk" in the forum search box above the list of threads, and then click on the thread that says "songs about farm folk." Perhaps a kind soul will provide a link... Margaret

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Margaret V
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:01 PM

We had a thread on this back in February, though not specifically geared for children. Type "farm folk" in the forum search box above the list of threads, and then click on the thread that says "songs about farm folk." Perhaps a kind soul will provide a link... Margaret

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: harpgirl
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:18 PM

..."inch by inch row by row" is a Dave Mallett song as is "The Haying Song". The first one is in RUS, a good source of songs in addition to the DT... the real harpgirl

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:20 PM

Nobody has mentioned "The Farmer in the Dell."

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: bigchuck
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 06:32 PM

I would second Nancy-Jean's recommendation of Margaret MacArthur. Also her son Dan, who is a Vermont farmer, has written some excellent songs: two of my favorites are "Yucky Bugs" and "A Perfect Cow".
Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Max Tone
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 07:42 PM

I've got a brand new combine harvester - The Wurzels
Alex -- we sing "The farmers in the den"
Is it the same song? -- "The farmer want's a wife" X 3.... "Hey ho my daddy-oh, the farmer want's a wife"....Etc. ('tis the only verse I can remember, .......?)
Rob

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: GUEST,mousethief (at the library)
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 07:51 PM

Yeah, Max, it's very much like that.

The farmer in the dell (2x)
Hi-ho, the derry-o,
The farmer in the dell

The farmer takes a wife...
The wife takes a child...
The child takes a nurse...
The nurse takes a dog...
The dog takes a cat...
The cat takes a mouse...
The mouse takes a cheese...
The cheese stands alone...

It's an action song; one child is picked as a farmer, then s/he picks a wife, then s/he picks the child, etc., until everybody has moved from one side of the room to the other.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: Lyr Add: A PLOWING SONG^^
From: Hotspur
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:08 PM

My dad discovered this in the attic at the family farm...vintage is probably 1930's.

A Plowing Song (Nat'l Boys' 4-H song).

A growing day and a awaking field
And a furrow straight and long
A golden sun and a lifting breeze
And we follow with a song.

(Chorus) Sons of the soil are we
Lads of field and flock
Turning our sods, asking no odds
Where is a life so free?
Sons of the soil are we
Men of the coming years
Facing the dawn, brain ruling brawn,
Lords of our land we'll be.

A guiding thought and a skillful hand
And a plant's young leaf unfurled
A summer's sun and a summer's rain
And we harvest for the world.

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone 19-Mar-01.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Max Tone
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:13 PM

Yeh, Alex,
That's the one. Hundreds of regional variations, I'm sure!
Thanks for the Paper & Comb additions. I've pointed the Stonehaven Fest organiser toward the thread, so I hope 'catters will be made welcome, next year!
Rob

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Bert
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:13 PM

There's The Old Sow Song

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Hotspur
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 08:30 PM

The Farmer is the Man Who Feeds Them All

The Painful Plough

Seventy Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat

The Dodger

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: richardw
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 10:48 PM

Try this link for a listing of many farm songs, some of which have been mentioned here. Probably more than you need.

http://www.topsoil.net/farmsongs.htm

Richard Wright

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: mg
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 10:50 PM

when I first came to this land...old Dutch song I believe..

Field behind the plow.

Long life and success to the farmer (Jill King variant or version)...

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 11:02 PM

Four that we use for fifth grade are:

The Sow Took the Measles

When I First Came to This Land

Uncle Sam's Farm

Starving to Death on My Government Claim aka The Greer County Bachelor

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: flattop
Date: 24 Oct 00 - 11:41 PM

Hames,

If you put 'farm' in the filter and set the age to 2 years, you get 24 farm related threads.

If you put 'farm*' in the DigiTrad Lyrics Search and press GO, you get 374 songs with farm as a word or part of a word.

Good luck with you project.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Rex
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 01:01 PM

The Copper Family does several songs about farm life.

Rex

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: nutty
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 03:15 PM

How about - To be a farmer's boy ' or any of the 'Copper'songs.

Also Eric Bogle - Leaving the Land , Now I'm Easy etc.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 04:54 PM

I think "When I First Came to this Land" is Scandahoovian. Dont' forget worksongs like "Cotton Needs Picking So Bad." or "Jump Down Turn around Pick a Bale of Cotton" from the African-American traditions.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 05:13 PM

Here are the words to The Field Behind the Plow, by Stan Rogers, which I found in another thread.

Here's a link to the thread called Songs about farm folk which was started back in February.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Haruo
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 05:33 PM

The farmer in the dell
Old MacDonald had a farm

Can't believe the thread got this far without those two! ;-)

I'll bring a couple more for you tomorrow. I'm thinking of one that starts "Kial, sorp' amara"...

If it's a public school, "Come, ye thankful people, come" may be unconstitutional; likewise "Wir pflügen und wir streuen", alas.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 06:03 PM

Everybody but me seems to be assuming these are LITTLE kids that you are collecting songs for. I wouldn't have posted "The Field Behind the Plow" if I thought THAT!

What age group did you have in mind, Hames?

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Haruo
Date: 25 Oct 00 - 06:52 PM

I wasn't assuming anything about the age group targeted. But it wouldn't hurt to know

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Kim C
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 04:28 PM

I like the Copper's song about the two brothers:

It was of two young brethren, two young brethren born
It was of two young brethren born
One, he was a shepherd and a tender of sheep
The other a planter of corn

I can't remember if it's called Two Young Brethren or The Two Brethren or something else entirely. :)

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 07:22 PM

Mi Chacra

I think the English translation I learned in school went something like:

Come and see my farm which is so beautiful (x2)
Little chickens go like this, "peep, peep!"
Oh, come my friend, oh come my friend, oh come oh come oh come (x2)

I think it's from Venezuela.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 07:58 PM

Jerry Rau's fine song called "80 Acres" is a great relatively modern song about a family farmer forced off the land 'cause he "Can't make a go on 80 acres"

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 08:01 PM

"Rolling Home" is another good song - word by John Tams - that I heard in Sidmouth this year - subtitle "The peasants are revolting"

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Haruo
Date: 26 Oct 00 - 10:55 PM

Do songs about milkmaids qualify as farming songs? I have an Esperanto version (tr. Auld & Hill) of something originally apparently called "Where are you going to, my fair pretty maid?", said to be from Sussex. (I think purt near every county in England has its variant(s) of that one, in English.)

Liland

Subject: Lyr Add: FARMER IN FLORIDA^^^
From: Auxiris
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 05:09 AM

Sorry to be so slow, Hames in adding the text to this song to the thread before it slid off the end of the forum:

Farmer in Florida (Kitty Donohoe)

Me and my good wife spent most of our lives
Together working God's earth so others could eat.
It's the way that I chose it, oh Harriet, she knows it,
Says she don't regret it, our life has been complete

When all the kids were grown,
They left the country for another home in the city,
They said farming's too much work for anyone.
When Harriet dried her tears
She said we've been here for thirty years,
Now it's our turn to get out and have some fun.

But there ain't nothing for a farmer in Florida
When his heart is still planting wheat fields back home.

So we sold our pickup, changed our address and packed up,
Told our old friends goodbye and we drove away.
Now I live like some other man
In a trailer park in some tin can
Go to movies on the weekend and play cribbage all day.

But Harriet she's in her prime,
Going places all the time
With the ladies on our street she sees everyday;
Sometimes when I'm walking alone,
I see those big birds flying home for the summer
I could just jump up and sail away!

But there ain't nothing for a farmer in Florida
When his heart is still planting wheat fields back home.

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Wavestar
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 07:37 AM

Liland, "Where are you going to" was originally "Rolling the Dew (Makes a Milkmaid Fair)" if I'm not mistaken.

Nanci Griffith alos sings a couple good farm songs, but my mind is blanking at the moment.

-J

Subject: RE: Help: Farming Songs
From: Dan Calder
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 07:49 AM

How about FARMER's SONG
by Murray McLauchlan

    

  A          A6         A            A6
  Dusty old farmer out working your fields
          A          A6            E     E/F#
  Hanging down over your tractor wheels
      E            E/F#          E            E/F#
  The sun beatin' down turns the red pain to orange
      E         E/F#        A     A6
  And rusty old patches of steel

.......

Dan