“The Hard Times of Old England”
Author: unknown
Earliest date: 1955 (recorded from Ron Copper)
Found in: Britain(England(South))
Description
Singer tells that the trade has gone; if you go to a shop without money, you can't buy. If you ask for a job, there is none; tradesmen walk the street looking for work; soldiers and sailors have come home to starve. He hopes the hard times will not last.
Notes
Kennedy seems to think that this song arose in the recession following a war, since sailors and soldiers were returning home to find no work. But the British military did not institute a true draft until World War I; the size of the military stayed relatively constant. And economic trouble was constant in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century; the population was growing faster than the system could expand. So this could be just a song of falling standards of living. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "Rigs of the Time" (subject)
References
- Kennedy 224, "The Hard Times of Old England" (1 text, 1 tune)
- DT, HRDTMENG*
- Roud #1206
- BI, K224
The Traditional Ballad Index is copyright ©2008
by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.
The Digital Tradition is copyright The Mudcat Cafe.