Westcountry Tales
Tom-tailor-made was a regular dandy
over in Camborne he set up his trade,
up on the carn with his pipe and his handy
nobody knew how his fortune he made.
Chorus
Some work their balls off and some just get lucky
that’s just the way of the world I suppose,
You get what you pay for and nothing’s for nothing
all I can say that’s the way that it goes.
Rin-Tin-Tin-Miner from St. Columb-Major
found himself jobless like everyone else,
a pound on a horse from Okehampton did wager
now he’s the Major in do it yourself.
Chorus
Rusty-red-Roger Redruth’s artful dodger
wheelin’ and dealin’ to powder his nose,
Gave it all up when he married his lodger
Rusty-red-Ruth now keeps him on his toes.
Chorus
Threepenny Penny was willing and able
worked on her looks but to little avail,
fancied a farmer from Praze on the Beeble,
now he’s a preacherman over in Hayle.
Chorus x2
© 1997, Paul Richards
Slievemore
The village on Slievemore forever it sleeps,
the ghosts have all gone and there’s nothing but sheep,
hiding in hollows ‘tween relics of stone,
grazing where people had once made their homes.
The hush of the mountain, the rush of the sea,
the bitter North wind will take nothing from me,
up on the hilltops there’s nowhere to hide,
pity poor fishermen out in the tide.
The bleakness of winter, the sun in the spring,
I hear no words in the song that you sing,
lost like a shipwreck out in the sea,
slowly decaying centuries.
The stars up above me throw pin-pricks of light,
sparkling amethyst jewels in the night,
silence is here not a memory remains,
the land and the sea, the wind and the rain.
© 1996, Paul Richards
Accent on the blues
I get so tired of hanging around, try to get goin’
but I’m going down,
‘think I’ll put my accent on the blues.
I aint asking for sympathy, don’t want nothing from you, so can’t you see,
just leave me alone while I put my accent on the blues.
Maybe it’s just the memory of the feelings that you had,
of a love so true and how it turned so bad,
‘been living in a limbo of an endless misery
you may think it’s an illusion but it’s still no mystery
Didn’t mean to hurt nobody, didn’t mean to cause no pain,
if you think that I’m a lyin’ I’ll say it again,
didn’t mean to hurt nobody or to cause you pain,
I’m stranded, I’m branded, on a lonesome windswept plain.
Never will say I was born to lose, it’s a matter of choice, and so I choose,
choose to put my accent on the blues
© 2001, Jim Klopfenstein