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The Roving Labourer

from A Yard of Ale by Stuart Forester

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A Yard of Ale is the second album by Stuart Forester released on Melonstone Records, May 2013. Ten original songs plus an interpretation of the traditional English folk ballad The Factory Girl and a cover of the Mike Waterson ode to the ragged glory and ultimate decline of the UK fishing industry, Cold Coast of Iceland.
    'You feel as though you’ve been listening to these songs and this voice for all your life.' Dai Jeffries, R2 Magazine.
    Comes shrink wrapped in full colour artwork gatefold card digipak with 12 page lyric booklet and full colour artwork on the cd itself.

    Includes unlimited streaming of A Yard of Ale via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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lyrics

The Roving Labourer 2.36 Stuart Forester

A British rewriting of the American traditional song The Roving Gambler and incorporating a variation of the old Yorkshire saying “From Hell, Hull, and Halifax may the Good Lord deliver us”, which is most commonly known from the Thieves’, Beggars’ or Dalesman’s Litany.

I am a roving labourer and I’ve laboured all around
From Hull to Hell and Halifax I’ve laid the blackstuff down
From Hull to Hell and Halifax I’ve laid the blackstuff down
I’ve worked the farms all summer I’ve lugged me share of hods
From Aberdeen to Truro town I’ve worked all kinds of jobs
From Aberdeen to Truro town I’ve worked all kinds of jobs

I’ll shovel coals up the Tyne and I’ll graft for cash in hand
I’ll break me back for ale and snap
But I’ll take no shit from the ganger man
I am a roving labourer and I’ve laboured all the land

I had not been in Liverpool not many weeks than three
When I fell in love with Maggie Mae and she fell in love with me
Yes I fell in love with Maggie Mae and she fell in love with me
She took me to the dockside house and she bought me black and tan
She whispered sweet and low in me ear “I love me a labouring man”
She whispered sweet and low in me ear “I love me a labouring man”

I’ll shovel coals up the Tyne and I’ll graft for cash in hand
I’ll break me back for ale and snap
But I’ll take no shit from the ganger man

On highways and the railways on scaffolds and in mills
I’ve roamed this land with a shovel in my hand made from Sheffield steel
I’ve roamed this land with a shovel in my hand made from Sheffield steel
Cos I am a roving labourer and I’ve laboured all around
From Hull to Hell and Halifax I’ve laid the blackstuff down
From Hull to Hell and Halifax I’ve laid the blackstuff down

credits

from A Yard of Ale, released May 1, 2013
Written by Stuart Forester
Stuart Forester - Guitar & Vocals

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Stuart Forester Scotland, UK

Stuart Forester is an English acoustic roots songwriter in the folk tradition who has quite some stories to tell. Born in Cumbria but raised from a a few months old until the age of three in trailer homes in Canada he grew up in Hull, East Yorkshire and then spent many years in London. He now lives in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland where his latest album The Good Earth was recorded. ... more

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