1. |
||||
Here voices are tuned to each other in gladness
To all here in common affection belongs
Here joy and laughter meet keening and sadness
Here tyranny’s cursed for the people have songs
Let us set the room ringing with the sound of our singing
When we come to the end let us hold the chord long
Hear the harmonies rise and all close our eyes
’Til the last cadence dies the people have songs
Here is war parting sweethearts, here are strong sweating sailors
And the beauty for which poets ardently long
Here are people at work singing loud at their labours
Here are laughter and drinking for the people have songs
Respect for each other gives each one a hearing
And whether the voice be uncertain or strong
We listen with love if the heart is endearing
Supported in harmony the people have songs
Disdaining oppression like others before us
Our gentleness angered by history’s wrongs
Our tradition endures, and our voices in chorus
Are lifted in hope for the people have songs!
|
||||
2. |
||||
Keep the spirit, keep the way
Brother, sister take a hand
Unity will win the day
Raise your banners high!
Strength to strength and line by line
Unity must never die!
Raise your banners high!
Those who live in face of strife
Those who fight for liberty
Fight to win a better life
Fight to keep the future free!
‘Though the struggle brings us pain
‘Though the struggle gives us tears
Ours will be the final gain
We shall raise the victor’s cheers!
|
||||
3. |
John Warner - Mark Allen
01:55
|
|||
The roof Mark Allen fell from was a hangman’s trap of shame
But from the day Mark Allen died the union sings his fame
He’s every worker’s brother, he is the union’s son
And in Mark Allen’s memory we’ll fight ‘til we have won!
He went to inspect safety – a union worker’s right
But those who had the contract tried to bar him from the site
You contractors with cheap tin souls the truth you can’t deny
It was your unsafe practices that let Mark Allen die
“The union doesn’t pay your wage, you climb back up that wall”
So frightened young men went back up and saw Mark Allen fall
You bureaucrats of government who blame him for his death
His blood is on your murdering hands you lie with every breath
Mark Allen’s aching mother weeps, Mark Allen’s father grieves
The union’s weeping with them but it’s rolling up its sleeves
|
||||
4. |
||||
To sing you a song is my purpose and aim
Concerning a pollie, Costello by name
The Liberals’ darling, a financial whiz
He’s Federal Treasurer that’s what he is
When he was a baby his mother said “Pete
Most little children are cuddly and sweet
Most mothers their dear little babies adore
But you are a bastard and that is for sure”
His childhood was spent doing horrible things
Like tearing off poor little butteflies’ wings
Bullying infants, reneging on bets
Robbing his Granny and torturing pets
When he was just fourteen his father said “Son
I’m really ashamed of some things that I’ve done
I poisoned my mates with a tainted home-brew
But my cardinal error was fathering you”
He sugared the petrol, he short-sheeted beds
He filled up the air vents with rotten prawn heads
He was selfish, vindictive and shallow and cruel
He was king of the dobbers when he went to school
The neighbours took up a collection one day
To buy him a ticket and send him away
To Bathurst or Beijing or Belfast or Rome
But no one would have him so he stayed at home.
Now he is Treasurer wielding his axe
On national broadcasting, students and blacks
Hacking and burning and kicking at heads
Til’ thousands lie trembling in fear in their beds
He derives satisfaction and joy from his work
You can tell by his cynical satisfied smirk
But don’t lose your temper and don’t lose your nerve
Remember we’re getting just what we deserve
|
||||
5. |
||||
That’s not the way it’s got to be
There should be jobs for you and me
Hiring not firing should be the master plan
The workers shouldn’t have to pay
Just to keep the boss at bay
The world shouldn’t turn just to please a wealthy man
I don’t like Keating, I didn’t like Hawke
All they bloody did was talk
And fight with each other while the country went to pot
The Labour party doesn’t seem
To know what the word labour means
Retrenchment and recession
They are now the workers’ lot
We’ve got John Howard for a year or three
Captain mediocrity
Cutting back on welfare and the poor old ABC
Costello, Reith and Vanstone too
And a Labour rat to spice the brew
Senate rat or rationalist they’re no friends to you or me
In NSW we’ve got Bob Carr
More like a Liberal every hour
Fighting with his workers, nurses, teachers and police
Who said the DLP was dead?
The Labour right lifts up his head
He’s just a Labour squatter
And were cockies on his lease
Victoria ran under Kennett’s rules
Closing down the government schools
Sacking public servants and stealing their back pay
Victoria is on the dole
And Kennett thought he was on a roll
If you want to help the workers mate there is a better way
Economic rationalism, now there’s another sacred cow
Sane as scientology, and as fallible as the pope
I don’t like trickle-down, y’see
No money trickles down to me
Meanwhile me wages goes on trickling up like smoke
|
||||
6. |
||||
Walking all the day
By tall towers where falcons build their nests
Silver-winged they fly
They know the call of freedom in their breasts
Saw Black Head against the sky
Where twisted rocks run down to the sea
Living on your western shore
Saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
And sang a song for Ireland
Drinking all the day
In old pubs where fiddlers love to play
Saw one touch the bow
He played a reel which seemed so grand and gay
We stood on Dingle Beach and cast
In wild foam we found Atlantic bass
Talking all the day
With true friends who try to make you stay
Telling jokes and news
And singing songs to pass the time away
Watched the Galway salmon run
Like silver dancing, darting in the sun
Dreaming in the night
I saw a land where no-one had to fight
Waking in your dawn
I saw you crying in the morning light
Lying where the falcons fly
They twist and turn all in your e’er blue sky
|
||||
7. |
||||
‘S a Bhríd Óg Ní Mháille ‘s tú d’fhág mo chroí cráite
Chuir tu arraing an bháis tri cheart-lár mo chroí
Tá na ceadta fear i ngrá le d’éadan ciúin náireach
Is go dtug tú barr breáhacht ar thír Oirghiall má’s fíor
Níl ní ar bith is áille ná’n ghealach os cionn an tsáile
Ná bláth bán na n-áirné bhíos ag fás ar an droighean
O siúd mar a bhíos mo ghrá-sa, nios trillsí le breáhacht
Béilín meala na h-ailleacht nach ndearna riamh claon
Is buachaill deas óg mé ‘tá ag triall chun mo phósta
’S ní buan i bhfad beo mé mura bhfaghaidh mé mo mhian
A chuisle is a stóirín, déan réidh is bí romham-sa
Cionn deireannach den Domhnach ar bhóithrín Droim Sliabh
Is tuirseach ‘s is brónach a chaithimse an Domhnach
Mo hata ‘n mo dhorn, is mé ag osnaíl go trom
Is mé ag amharc ar na bóithre a mbíonn mo ghrása ag gabháil ann
Si ag fear eile pósta ‘gus gan i bheith liom
|
||||
8. |
||||
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a lovesick leannán sí
She hath my heart in thrall
No life I own nor liberty
For love is lord of all
And often when the beetle’s horn
Hath lulled the eye to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And through the dooring peep
There on the cricket’s singing stone
She stirs the bogwood fire
And sings in sad, sweet undertones
The song of heart’s desire
Her welcome like her love for me
Is from the heart within
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint nor sin
When she was only fairy-small
Her gentle mother died
But true love keeps her memory warm
By Lagan’s silver side
|
||||
9. |
||||
It’s with Kitty I’ll go for a ramble
Over the mountains wild
Where the blackbirds nest in the bramble
In a home where the eagle chides
Or in some lonely valley
Where the birds in the evening nest
And mine with their prayers would mingle
For the sun to hurry west
Oh, I’ll buy the roughest of raiment
To last out the life of man
My whiskers unkempt and unshaven
‘Til the reach is a mile in span
Like the fleece of the grey mountain wether
They’ll tumble and dangle around
If I don’t get a wife in the heather
I’ll try in the new-mown ground
|
||||
10. |
||||
I was convicted by the laws
Of England’s hostile crown
Conveyed across those swelling seas
In slavery’s fetters bound
Forever banished from that shore
Where love and friendship grow
That loss of freedom to deplore
And work the labouring hoe
Despised rejected and oppressed
In tattered rags I’m clad
What anguish fills my aching breast
And drives me almost mad
When I hear the settler’s threatening voice
Say “Arise to labour go!
Take scourging convict for your choice
Or work the labouring hoe
Growing weary from compulsive toil
Beneath the noontide sun
While drops of sweat bedew the soil
My task remains undone
I’m flogged for wilful negligence
Or the tyrant calls it so
Oh what a doleful recompense
For labouring with the hoe
Behold yon lofty woodbine hills
Where the rose in the morning shines
Those crystal brooks that do distil
And mingle with those vines
There seems to me no pleasure gained
They but augment my woe
While here an outcast doomed to live
And work the labouring hoe
You generous sons of Erin’s isle
Whose heart for glory burns
Pity a wretched exile
Who his long-lost country mourns
Restore me heaven to liberty
Whilst I lie here below
Untie this clue of bondage
And release me from the hoe!
|
||||
11. |
Sue Gee - Mary Reiby
06:03
|
|||
Tell me, convict boy James Borrow
What may be your fate tomorrow?
Streets of Sydney glowing gold
For Mary Reiby, merchant bold
When you’re next at Circular Quay
Take a stroll down Reiby Place
See a travel-worn ship docking
And a teenaged convict’s lonely face
Was she anxious, hopeless, fearful
Bitter, raging at her plight?
Or did she see sun on water glinting
Thanking God he’d spared her life?
Denied a loving place in family
Young Mary took a desperate ploy
To escape her situation
She masqueraded as a boy
James Borrow was the name she took
Three months she roamed a wandering course
Til penniless, in rags, and starving
From a field she stole a horse
Could she have known this reckless act
Her whole destiny would shape?
Despite all pleas she was transported
To spend her days in a strange landscape
Conditions on the ship were hard
A fever cost them many lives
But Mary, lucky and resourceful
Somehow managed to survive
Assigned to working as a servant
In Lieutenant Grose’s home
She caught the eye of a young sailor
Thomas Reiby was his name
On the banks of the Hawkesbury River
Together they farmed a grant of land
Began their lives as equal partners
In love and business, hand in hand
A flood destroyed their Hawkesbury home
So the Reibys moved to Sydney’s Rocks
Mary ran their trading stores
Tom sailed the world purchasing stock
For many years the business prospered
‘Til fever took Tom from her side
But Mary carried on undaunted
Although her tears had scarcely dried
Alone, she brought up seven children
Her sons upon her ships enrolled
Her steady hand made wise investments
Until an empire she controlled
She stood her ground among the men
With commonsense and business skill
Yes, we salute you Mary Reiby
Your life inspires all women still
|
||||
12. |
||||
I was working for my father
On a dairy farm out on Otway
When one day that thrice-poxed postie
With a conscription notice came
John Curtin said “boy you’re the one
To protect our dear home from the rising sun”
‘Cos the volunteers were fighting for England
Only the rugged and the buggered remained
So they placed me in a Choco battalion
39th AMF was its name
And they sent us on off to New Guinea
Even though we were only half-trained
I remember turning twenty quite well
‘Cos the very next day was when Singapore fell
And as the panic spread to Port Moresby
Only the rugged and the buggered remained
So we marched on up to Kokoda
And the track it was sheer muddy hell
And they told us to hold this great ridgeline boys
Before the Japs could get there as well
But they took us at about six to one
When the best thing we had was an old Lewis gun
And the cry went back to Port Moresby
Only the rugged and the buggered remained
Well we fought them off with our rifles
With our spades and our boots and our knives
And we gave those sons of the Emperor
The bloodiest fight of our lives
But we knew we hadn’t a hope
As we paid with our youth to retreat down the slope
And as the veterans sailed for Port Moresby
Only the rugged and the buggered remained
We were on our last bloody legs at Isurava
We were sick, we were starved, we were worn
Then the veterans came to fill out our line
Just when we thought we were gone
Well we staggered away from the front
Our clothes were old rags and our guns rusted up
And as I looked out amongst my companions
Only the rugged and the buggered remained
|
||||
13. |
||||
On the edge of the mangrove, down by Casey’s hole
There lives the Metho Man
’Neath rusting wrought iron, a fire’s burning low
There lives the Metho Man
Come my beauty and dance
They’re playing the Varsovienna
Come my beauty and drink
Drink to the memory of a younger man’s dreams
At night you can hear them float by on the wind
The songs of the Metho Man
His voice at times booming, sometimes high and thin
The songs of the Metho Man
My Grandfather knew him, from his time on the rails
Says he was real quiet, always kept to himself
On the edge of the mangrove, down by Casey’s Hole
There died the Metho Man
And they say he just fell asleep in the flames
There died the Metho Man
|
||||
14. |
||||
Farewell Finisterre. Sleep away the afternoon
Rockin’ with the tide, drinkin’ with the moon
I found a ticket in my pocket, all the way from Port of Spain
And a warm wind from the Indies carried me again
Santander, the sky is falling
The tale we told each other has an end
Santander, d’you hear me calling?
You that never lost a friend
We’d off and search for gold: treasure’s buried in the sand
We hid it long ago, before our wars began
When the world was green and early and time was on our side
Before the storm got up to blow us far and wide
So farewell Finisterre. Sleep away the afternoon
Just rockin’ with the tide, drinkin’ with the moon
Last night I turned the glasses over and I drank the bottle dry
The moon stared out to sea all night and so did I
(lyrics reprinted by permission of Ian Telfer/Pukka Music 1990)
|
||||
15. |
||||
We’ll play guitar all night long when the good old days come back
When the Wabash Cannonball comes steamin’ down this rusty track
We’ll sing along with the bluebirds’ song in the cool clear air for sure
There’ll be a chicken in every pot when the hard times come no more
Oh hard times come again no more!
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door
Oh hard times come again no more!
All I see is poverty when I look for a brighter day
The good Lord knows where the good times go, the good times sure go away
I’ll make a damn good wealthy man, I ain’t done good as poor
And there’ll be a chicken in every pot when the hard times come no more
I’m tired of singin’ sad songs I wanna dance an old time jig
I recall when the bills were small, a Cadillac was big
A government bond was as good as gold, a handshake meant for sure
Oh there’ll be a chicken in every pot when the hard times come no more
I hope I’m here to stand and cheer when nobody has the blues
When you watch TV and all you see is nothin’ but good news
I wanna see the old SP kick an Amtrak out the door
I wanna see a chicken in every pot when the hard times come no more
|
||||
16. |
||||
I’m a poor man as honest as they come
I never was a thief until they caught me
And the judge said he saw my hands were red
No matter how I plead he found me guilty
There was no bail, off to Durham gaol
I went knowing nothing that could save me
Calamities they always come in threes
And that’s how many months it was he gave me
And no never in the livelong day
You won’t find me back in Durham gaol
And no never in the livelong day
You won’t find me back in Durham gaol
‘Twas a grey day when first I went astray
The devil take the man that came to tempt me
‘Cause in no time my life was one of crime
And now you see the trouble that it’s got me
There’s four bare walls at which to stare
My board and my lodgings are all paid for
And you can’t see the turning of the key
To see it turnin’ back is all you wait for
Sad to say, here I am to stay
With only iron bars around to lean on
I get a cold bath to dampen down me wrath
‘Though it’s barely just a month ago I had one
And God knows I need a suit of clothes
You’d think they could’ve found a one to fit me
My boots would be fine if they were both a nine
I’m walking like a fall of stones has hit me
And I’m sure that me mother’s heart would break
To see me in a state of such repentance
And I’m glad she’s not around to see
‘Cause I’ll be out before she finishes her sentence
The sun will shine, I’ll leave it all behind
Knowing I’ve done my time and done my duty
Out through the gates on the narrow and the straight
To the place where I have buried all the booty!
(lyrics reprinted by permission of J.Lowe/Lowe Life Music)
|
||||
17. |
||||
If you’re from the National Times
And you’d really like to find
All the cops and tape-recorders
Who were following the orders
Of the crooked politician
Seen on national television
With the well known racing figure
Taking compromising pictures
Of the judge that liked to gamble
With the payoffs that he handled
At the court of petty sessions...
|
||||
18. |
||||
I’ve heard men complain o’ the jobs that they’re dain’
When they’re hawkin’ the coal or diggin’ the drain
But whatever they are, there’s none that compar’
Wi’ a man that’s at shovellin’ manura, manya!
Wi’ manura manya, wi’ manura manya!
Wi’ manura, manura, manura manya!
Oh the streets o’ the toon were all kivvered aroon
Wi’ stuff that was beautiful gowden and broon
It was put there o’ course by a big Clydesdale horse
And its name was manura, manura manya!
I ha’ followed its track wi’ me shovel and sack
And often as no wi’ a pain in me back
It was a’ for the rent and the beautiful scent
Of manura, manura, manura manya!
But I’m feelin’ so sore for my job’s been took o’er
And everything noo is mechanical power
And there’s nought left for me but the sweet memory
Of manura, manura, manura manya!
|
||||
19. |
||||
No lark in transport mounts the sky
Or leaves with early plaintive cry
But I will bid a last goodbye
My last farewell to Stirling, oh
Though far away, my heart’s with you
Our youthful hours upon wings they flew
But I will bid a last adieu
My last farewell to Stirling, oh
No more I’ll meet you in the dark
Or go with you to the king’s park
Or raise the hare from out their flap
When I go far from Stirling, oh
No more I’ll wander through the glen
Disturb the roost of the pheasant hen
Or chase the rabbits to their den
When I go far from Stirling, oh
So fare thee well, my Jeannie dear
For you I’ll shed a bitter tear
I hope you find another, dear
When I go far from Stirling, oh
So fare thee well, for I am bound
For twenty years to Van Dieman’s Land
But think on me and what I’ve done
When I go far from Stirling, oh
|
||||
20. |
||||
Of all the money that e’er I spent
I spent it in good company
And of all the harm that e’er I’ve done
I swear ‘twas done to none but me
And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night, and joy be to you all
If I had money enough to spend
And leisure time to sit awhile
There is a fair maid in this town
And she surely has my heart beguiled
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips
I own she has my heart in thrall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night, and joy be to you all
Of all the friends that e’er I had
They were sorry for my going away
And of all the sweethearts e’er I had
They would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
Then I’d gently rise and softly call
Good night, and joy be to you all
|
Miguel Heatwole Sydney, Australia
Miguel’s a versatile singer, choral director & composer. His interests include folk & world music, political satire, the environment, trade unionism & the responsible enjoyment of alcohol. His songwriting embraces themes like peace & justice, the family cat, & visceral passionate attraction. His enthusiasm for recording community singing has let many people share the power of their songs. ... more
Streaming and Download help
Miguel Heatwole recommends:
If you like The People Have Songs - Volume 2, you may also like:
Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp