Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard Case (Ewan MacColl) From: GUEST Date: 25 Apr 13 - 05:51 PM Anyone tell me what chords they use for Hard Case? I'm not 100% happy with it the way I'm playing it... Cheers Dave |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard Case (Ewan MacColl) From: Jim Carroll Date: 04 Sep 10 - 06:09 AM What's the double album Jim? Jim Carroll |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard Case (Ewan MacColl) From: GUEST,jim mcateer Date: 04 Sep 10 - 05:55 AM Bought a double album with hard case on first disc.Great song. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,Oldnickilby Date: 12 Oct 07 - 08:56 AM The first two verses are: As I walked up in Newport St A Gentleman I chanced to meet I upped with me fists And I Knocked him down out of his pockets I stole £5 I lay in the Watch House all that night Till 8 o clock in the morning o They put me up before Mr Hook And in his Black Book he did look It is a great song and rarely sung in its original version |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 11 Oct 07 - 07:46 PM And then there's the Treadmill Song: Step in, young man, I know your face, It's nothing in your favour. A little time I'll give to you: Six months unto hard labour. With me whip fol the day, whip fol the day, whip fol the day fol the diggie o (More verses here - though not the chorus) |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 10 Oct 07 - 07:22 PM MacColl was trying to rival US prison songs. I'd have thought he was probably thinking as much in terms of a song like Tommy Armstrong's Durham Jail and others in the same vein: Wy'll aal hev hord o' Durham Gaol, But it wad ye much surprise, Te see the prisoners in the yard, When they're on exercise, this yard is built aroond wi' waals, Se noble an'se strang. Wheiver gans in haas te bide their time, Be it short or lang Chorus O there's ne good luck in Durham Gaol, There's ne good luck at aal; what's bread and' skilly for, Burt just te make ye smaal?... |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: ossonflags Date: 10 Oct 07 - 12:18 PM I first heard this sung by Mike Watersom in the Jacoranda club in Hull.......... circa 1961? |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: Susanne (skw) Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:45 PM And shouldn't the third line of the chorus be "But the hardest cases in the world" ??? |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: curmudgeon Date: 03 Oct 07 - 05:06 PM "They say it's cold at the old North Pole And Greenland's icy shore. But the coldest place in the whole damned world Are the cells upon the Moor." from the LP "Bad Lads and Hard Cases" |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GeorgeH Date: 28 Aug 01 - 06:41 AM I've always heard the last line of the chorus as: "The screws that run the moor". Sorry, but I'm not likely to check my sources at present . . life is a little complicated! George |
Subject: Lyr Add: HARD CASE (Ewan MacColl) From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 28 Aug 01 - 03:44 AM Someone beat me to it but here's what I found out,( don't want to waste all that typing!): I checked through my old Spinners LPs over the weekend and found this, it was by Ewan MacColl. HARD CASE
I've done me time in Liverpool
CHORUS:
They've got big fleas in Strangeways
(CHORUS)
Well the work is hard, the snout is scarce
(CHORUS)
I've been a porridge eater now
(CHORUS)
So if you're keen to find out
(CHORUS) For Transatlantic readers the Moor is Dartmoor, The Scrubs is Wormwood Scrubs, all UK prisons. MacColl was trying to rival US prison songs. Porridge, the alleged staple diet is slang for a prison sentence. Strokes are tricks or strategems, snout is tobacco, the prison currency, screws are prison officers.
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: Wolfgang Date: 24 Aug 01 - 03:48 AM Thanks so much for all the information, especially for the lyrics.
After some search I found last night an old worn tape with some songs from the Story of Folk into Rock LPs, so that's where I knew it from. I made a half-hearted attempt at transcription and came up with bits like Wolfgang |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,Pete M at work Date: 23 Aug 01 - 11:30 PM I remember mentioning this song to a lag who was in the same ward as me when I broke my leg. By then (1978) the 'Moor had been downgraded to medium security, and he did not share the songs opinion of the screws. (He was doing a stretch for GBH.) Pete M |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: Anglo Date: 23 Aug 01 - 05:44 PM I heard this starting: "I've served my time in Walton, I know the Scrubs as well, …" (Small difference I know). |
Subject: Lyr Add: HARD CASE (Ewan MacColl) From: GUEST,bigJ Date: 23 Aug 01 - 04:54 PM Aha! Second pile on the right. The book is called 'The Skiffle Album - featuring skiffle and folk songs popularised by ALAN LOMAX and the RAMBLERS' Published at two shillings and six pence by Feldman and Co. Shaftesbury Avenue, London in 1957.(I don't remember being that young). The introduction says. "Alan Lomax stole the show at so many parties with his Texas jailhouse songs that Ewan MacColl - not finding any British folksongs to combat them - made up this one. The language is absolutely authentic, for Ewan has spent time interviewing old-time lags who have been down to Dartmoor for vacations of various lengths."
HARD CASE
I've done my time in Liverpool, I know the Scrubs as well (Wormwood Scrubs),
Chorus
They've got big fleas in Strangeways, They're big in Peterhead,
The work is hard the snout (tobacco) is scarce, the privileges are few,
I've been a porridge eater now for twenty years or more,
So if you're keen on finding out what the devil has in store, The Ramblers, by the way, were: Alan Lomax; Ewan MacColl; Peggy Seeger; Shirley Collins; Bruce Turner - clarinet; Jim Bray (?) - bass; an unknown guitar player. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,bigJ Date: 23 Aug 01 - 04:22 PM Certainly it's MacColl and I think it appeared in a song book called 'Skiffle Session' which had a photo of the Ramblers on the fron. All I have to do now is find it, of course. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: Susanne (skw) Date: 23 Aug 01 - 04:20 PM And some notes from the last mentioned album: [1975:] [A group round Ewan MacColl, Alan Lomax, A. L. Lloyd:] one side of their only single for Decca. [...] The story goes that MacColl was inspired by the popularity of Negro chaingang songs among British skifflers to produce something with more of a British accent. Terms like 'screw' for warder and 'snout' for tobacco were unknown then. (Karl Dallas, notes 'The Electric Muse') Unfortunately, I find the lyrics almost impossible to make out as it's a fairly fast song. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,Scabby Doug (pah.. cookies - who needs 'em?) Date: 23 Aug 01 - 12:14 PM This also appeared on the compilation album set Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock 1975 4LP set Island/Transatlantic (Folk 1001), Alan Lomax & The Ramblers: Hard Case Not sure if it's been reissued or not... Cheers SD
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,lonesome ed Date: 23 Aug 01 - 06:55 AM MacColl sings this on an album called "Bad Lads and Hard Cases," issued in the US by Riverside in the fifties, probably from a Topic original. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hard cases galore From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 23 Aug 01 - 06:23 AM Thanks, Wofgang, I'd forgotten that I'd done that (and should have known better than to hide it!). I'm just about to go off till Tuesday morning so I'll look forward to a flood of replies (but if you haven't found it.... RtS |
Subject: Hard cases galore From: Wolfgang Date: 23 Aug 01 - 06:01 AM In the middle of an old thread about hard guitar cases Roger the skiffler has hidden the following music request. I want to give it more prominence for purely egotistical reasons: but a line from a song came into my head: "Hard case, hard case Hard cases galore But the hardest cases in the world Are the "screws" upon Dartmoor". Where does that come from ?Liverpool Spinners?Critics?Ewan MacColl? I have the same song in my head and would like to see more of it here: Lyrics, who played it, etc. I only can contribute the line: I've done my time in Liverpool... Wolfgang |
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