English Rebel Songs - Redux

Thanks to Boff for the heads up on these lyrics.

The Cutty Wren

Oh where are you going? said Milder to Moulder
Oh we may not tell you said Festel to Fose
We're off to the wood said John the Red Nose
We're off to the wood said John the Red Nose
And what will you do there? said Milder to Moulder
Oh we may not tell you said Festel to Fose
We'll shoot the cutty wren said John the Red Nose
We'll shoot the cutty wren said John the Red Nose
Oh how will you cut him up? said Milder to Moulder
Oh we may not tell you said Festel to Fose
With knives and with forks said John the Red Nose
With knives and with forks said John the Red Nose
And who’ll get the spare ribs? said Milder to Moulder
Oh we may not tell you said Festel to Fose
We'll give them all to the poor said John the Red Nose
We'll give them all to the poor said John the Red Nose

The Diggers Song

You noble diggers all stand up now, stand up now
You noble diggers all stand up now
The wasteland to maintain seeing cavaliers by name
Your digging does maintain and persons all defame
Stand up now, stand up now
With spades and hoes and ploughs stand up now, stand up now
With spades and hoes and ploughs stand up now
Your freedom to uphold seeing cavaliers are bold
To kill you if they could and rights from you to hold
Stand up now diggers all
The lawyers they conjoin stand up now stand up now
The lawyers they conjoin stand up now
To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise, the devil in them lies
And hath blinded both their eyes
Stand up now, stand up now
The clergy they come in stand up now, stand up now
The clergy they come in stand up now
The clergy they come in and say it is a sin
That we should now begin our freedom for to win
Stand up now diggers all
The gentry are all round stand up now, stand up now
The gentry are all round stand up now
The gentry are all round on each side the are found
Their wisdom so profound to cheat us of our ground
Stand up now stand up now
The club is all their law, stand up now stand up now
The club is all their law, stand up now
The club is all their law, to keep poor men in awe
That they no vision saw to maintain such a law
Stand up now diggers all

Colliers March

The summer was over, the season unkind
In harvest a snow, how uncommon to find
The times were oppressive and well it be known
That hunger will strongest of fences break down
'Twas then from theirselves the black gentry stepped out
With bludgeons determined to stir up a rout
The prince of the party who revelled from home
Was a terrible fellow and called Irish Tom
He brandished his bludgeon with dexterous skill
And close to his elbow was placed Barley Will
Their instantly followed a numerous train
As cheerful as bold Robin Hood's merry men
Sworn to remedy a capital fault
Bring down the exorbitant price of the malt
From Dudley to Walsall they trip it along
And Hampton was truly alarmed at the throng
Women and children wherever they go
Shouting out 'Oh the brave Dudley boys! Oh!'
With nailers and spinners the cavalcade joined
The markets to lower their flattering design
Six days out of seven poor nailing boys get
Little else at their meals but potatoes to eat
For bread hard they labour, good things never carve
And swore 'twere as well to be hanged as to starve
Such are the feelings in every land
Nothing necessity’s call can withstand
And riots are certain to sadden the year
When sixpenny loaves as three pounders appear

The Triumph Of General Ludd

No more chant your old rhymes about old Robin Hood
His feats I do little admire
I'll sing the achievements of General Ludd
Now the hero of Nottinghamshire
Brave Ludd was to measure of violence unused
‘Til his sufferings became so severe
That at last to defend his own interests he roused
And for the great fight did prepare
The guilty may fear but no vengeance he aims
At the honest man’s life or estate
His wrath is entirely confined to wide frames
And to those that old prices abate
Those engines of mischief were sentenced to die
By unanimous vote of the trade
And Ludd who can all opposition defy
Was the grand executioner made
And when in the work he destruction employs
Himself to no method confines
By fire and by water he gets them destroyed
For the elements aid his designs
Whether guarded by soldiers along the highway
Or closely secured in a room
He shivers them up by night and by day
And nothing can soften their doom
He may censure great Ludd’s disrespect for the laws
Who ne’er for a moment reflects
That foul imposition alone was the cause
Which produced these unhappy effects
Let the haughty the humble no longer oppress
Then shall Ludd sheath his conquering sword
His grievances instantly meet with redress
Than peace shall be quickly restored
Let the wise and the great lend their aid and advice
Nor e‘er their assistance withdraw
Till full-fashioned work at the old-fashioned price
Is established by custom and law
Then the trade when this arduous contest is o'er
Shall raise in full splendour it’s head
And colting and cutting and squaring no more
Shall deprive honest workers of bread

Chartist Anthem

A hundred years a thousand years
We're marching on the road
The going isn't easy
Yet we've got a heavy load
Oh we've got a heavy load
The way is blind with blood and sweat
And death sings in our ears
But time is marching on our side
We will defeat the years
Oh we will defeat the years
We men of bone of shrunken shank
Our only treasure dearth
Women who carry at the breast
Heirs to the hungry earth
Oh heirs to the hungry earth
Speak with one voice, we march, we rest
And march again upon the years
Sons of our sons are listening
To hear the Chartist cheers
Oh, to hear the Chartist cheers

The Bad Squire

The merry brown hares came a-leaping
Over the crest of the hill
Where the clover and corn lay a-sleeping
Under the moonlight so still
Leaping so late and so early
‘Till under their bite and their tread
The swedes and the wheat and the barley
Lay cankered and trampled and dead
A poacher’s poor widow sat sighing
On the side of the moss-patterned bank
Where under the gloom of the fir-woods
One acre of ground laying rank
She watched over barely grown clover
Where rabbit or hare never ran
For the ground that it all covered over
Hid the blood of a good murdered man
She thought of the shaded plantation
And the hares and her husband’s own blood
And the voice of her own indignation
Rose up to the throne of her God
There’s blood on your new foreign shrubs, Squire
There’s blood on your pointer’s cold feet
There’s blood on the game that you sell Squire
And there’s blood on the game that you eat
You have sold out the labouring man, Squire
Both body and soul for to shame
To pay for your seat in the House, Squire
And to pay for the feed of your game
You made him a poacher yourself, Squire
When you’d give not the work nor the meat
And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden
At our starving poor little one’s feet
When packed into one tiny chamber
Man, mother and little ones lay
While the rain pattered in on our bride bed
And the walls barely held out the day
When we lay in the heat of the fever
On the mud and the clay of the floor
‘Till you parted us all for three months, Squire
And we knocked at the working house door
So to kennels and liveried varlets
Where you starved your own daughter of bread
And worn out with liquor and harlots
See your heirs at your feet lying dead
When you follow them into your heaven
And your soul rots asleep in the grave
Then Squire, you will not be forgiven
By the free men you took as your slaves

Song Of The Times

You working men of England one moment now attend
While I unfold the treatment of the poor upon this land
For nowadays the factory lords have brought the labour low
And daily are contriving plans to prove our overthrow
So arouse! You sons of freedom! The world seems upside down
They scorn the poor man as a thief in country and in town
There's different parts in Ireland, it's true what I do state
There's hundreds that are starving for they can't get food to eat
And if they go unto the rich to ask them for relief
They bang their door all in their face as if they were a thief
So arouse! You sons of freedom! The world seems upside down
They scorn the poor man as a thief in country and in town
Alas how altered are the times, rich men despise the poor
And pay them off without remorse, quite scornful at their door
And if a man is out of work his Parish pay is small
Enough to starve himself and wife, his children and all
So arouse! You sons of freedom! The world seems upside down
They scorn the poor man as a thief in country and in town
So to conclude and finish these few verses I have made
I hope to see before it's long men for their labour paid
Then we'll rejoice with heart and voice and banish all our woes
Before we do old England must pay us what she owes
So arouse! You sons of freedom! The world seems upside down
They scorn the poor man as a thief in country and in town

Smashing Of The Van

Attend you gallant Irishmen and listen for a while
I’ll sing to you the praises of the sons of Erins Isle
It’s of those gallant heroes who voluntarily ran
To release two Irish shamrocks from an English prison van
The eighteenth of September it was in that dreadful year
When sorrow and excitement ran throughout all Lancashire
At a gathering of the Irish boys they volunteered each man
To release those Irish prisoners out of the prison van
(chorus)
Hurrah! My lads for freedom
Let’s all join heart and hand
May the Lord have mercy on the boys
That helped to smash the van
In Manchester one morning those good heroes did agree
Their leaders, Kelly and Deasy, should have their liberty
They drank a health to Ireland and soon made up a plan
To meet the prisoners on the road and take and smash the van
(Repeat chorus)
With courage bold those heroes went and soon the van did stop
They cleared the guards from back and front and then smashed in the top
But in blowing open of the lock they chanced to kill a man
So three men must die on the scaffold high for smashing of the van
(Repeat chorus)
So now kind friends I will conclude I think it would be right
That all true hearted Irish men together should unite
Together should sympathise my friends and do the best we can
To keep the memories evergreen of the boys that smashed the van
(Repeat chorus)

World Turned Upside Down

Through eating too much supper
Before I went to bed
Strange thoughts came o’er my slumber
Strange thoughts came in my head
This world was topsy-turvy
And people of renown
Were doing the most peculiar things
As they world turned upside down
I dreamt all men were equal
And there were no starving poor
And nations never did quarrel
Nor never went to war
I dreamt all men were angels
And women ne'er wore a frown
Old maids they had large families
As the world turned upside down

Poverty Knock

(Chorus) 'Poverty poverty knock,' my loom is a-saying all day
Poverty poverty knock, gaffer's too skinny to pay
Poverty poverty knock, keeping one eye on the clock
I know I can guttle when I hear my shuttle go, 'poverty poverty knock'
Up every morning at five
I wonder that we keep alive
Tired and yawning another cold morning
It's back to the dreary old drive
(Repeat chorus)
Oh dear we're going to be late
Gaffer is stood at the gate
We're out of pocket our wages they'll docket
We'll have to buy grub on the slate
(Repeat chorus)
And when all our wages they'll bring
We're often short of a string
While we are fratching with gaffer for snatching
We know to his brass he will cling
(Repeat chorus)
Sometimes a shuttle flies out
And gives some poor woman a clout
There she lies bleeding but nobody's heeding
Oh who's going to carry her out?
(Repeat chorus)
Oh dear, my poor head it sings
I should have woven three strings
But threads are breaking and my back is aching
Oh dear how I wish I had wings
(Repeat chorus)

Idris Strike Song

Have you been to work at Idris?
No we won't go in today!
For we're standing by our comrade
And we'll never run away
She stood bravely by the Union
And she spoke up for us true
And if she gets the sack
No we never shall go back
What e'er they do, what e'er they do
Now you boys who're washing bottles
It really is a shame
To take the place of women
Don't you think you are to blame?
Come with us and join the Union
Never heed what Idris say
We are out to right the wrong
And now we shan't be long
Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray!
Master William, Master William
You must give in once again
It was wrong to sack a woman
With two children to maintain
Thirteen years she's faithful served you
Though she was three minutes late
But our little sister Anne
Why she never checked the man
At the gate, at the gate
Oh you great king in the palace
And you statesman at the top
When you're drinking soda water
Or imbibing ginger pop
Think of some who work at Idris
For very little pay
And who only get nine bob
For a most unpleasant job
Alack-a-day, alack-a-day
Now then girls all join the Union
Whatever you may be
In pickles, jam, or chocolate
Or packing pounds of tea
For we all want better wages
And this is what we say:
'We are out to right the wrong
And now we shan't be long
Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray!'

Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire

If you want to find the general
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the general
I know where he is
He's pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
I saw him, I saw him
Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
If you want to find the seargeant
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the seargent
I know where he is
He's drinking all the company rum
I saw him, I saw him
Drinking all the company rum
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
He's hanging on the old barbed wire
I saw him, I saw him
Hanging on the old barbed wire
Hanging on the old barbed wire

Coal Not Dole

They stand so proud, the wheels so still
A ghost-like 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
So tired and weary their shift’s done
Never having seen the sun
There’ll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They’ll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt
Will it become a sacred ground?
Foreign tourists gazing round
Asking if men once worked here
Way beneath this pit-head gear
Empty trucks once filled with coal
Lined up like men on the dole
Will they e’er be used again?
Or left for scrap just like the men?
There’ll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They’ll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt