Name: Dalesman's Litany
Duration: P00H05M52S
Description: Song about working conditions in the North of England, also a love element, great song!

Dalesman's Litany

from Fiddler's Green (a collection of songs) by Garry Blakeley

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Song about working conditions in the North of England, also a love element, great song!

lyrics

It's hard when folks can't get their work where they've been bred and born
When I was young I used to think I'd bide 'mid roots and corn
But I've been forced to work in town so here's my litany
From Hull and Halifax and Hell, good Lord deliver me
When I was courting Mary Jane, the old squire he says one day
I've got no rooms for wedded folk, choose whether to go or to stay
I could not give up the girl I loved, so to town I was forced to flee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell, good Lord deliver me
I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfied and I've earned some honest brass
In Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham I've kept my bairns and lass
I've travelled all three Ridings round and once I went to sea
From forges, mills and coaling boats, good Lord deliver me
I've walked at night through Sheffield lanes, 'twas just as being in hell
Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire and roared like the wind on the fell
I've sammed up coals in Barnsley pits with muck up to my knee
From Barnsley, Sheffield, Rotherham, good Lord deliver me
I've seen fog creep across Leeds bridge as thick as the Bastille soup
I've lived where folks were stowed away like rabbits in a coop
I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck as black as ebony
From Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey Stack, good Lord deliver me
But now that all our children have gone, to the country we've come back
There's forty mile of heathery moor 'twixt us and the coalpits' stack
And as I sit by the fire at night, I laugh and shout with glee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell the good Lord delivered me

credits

from Fiddler's Green (a collection of songs), released April 17, 2021

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Garry Blakeley Hastings, UK

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