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There was a woman and she lived on her own, |
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Slaved on her own and skivvied on her own, |
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She'd two little boys and two little girls -- |
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She lived all alone with her husband. |
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He was a hunk of a man |
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A chunk of a man and a drunk of a man, |
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A hunk of a drunken skunk of a man |
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Such a boozy, bruising, bully of a husband. |
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For when he'd come home drunk at night, |
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He'd thrash her black and thrash her white; |
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Thrashed her to within an inch of her life, |
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And snored all night like a big drunken husband. |
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One night she gathered her tears all round her shame |
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Covered up the bruise and cried with the pain, |
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You'll not do that ever again, |
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I'll not live anymore with a drunk of a husband. |
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And that night as he lay drunk in bed, |
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The strangest thought came to her head, |
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She took the needle and the thread, |
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And went straight in to her sleeping husband. |
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She started to stitch with a girlish thrill |
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With a woman's eye and a seamstress' skill, |
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She bibbed and tucked with an iron will, |
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A she stitched all round her sleeping husband. |
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The top sheet, the bottom sheet, too, |
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The blanket stitched to the mattress through, |
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She bibbed and tucked the whole night through |
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Waiting for the dawn and her husband. |
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Solo (hyup!) |
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He awoke with a pain in his head, |
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He found that he could not move in bed, |
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Sweet God in Heaven, have I lost me legs! |
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She just sat and smiled at her husband. |
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In her hand she held the frying pan |
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With a flutter in her heart she flew at him; |
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He could not move he cried, |
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God damn! |
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Don't you swear at me ya dirty husband." |
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She beat him black, she beat him blue, |
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With the frying pan and the colander too, |
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With the rolling pin a stroke or two |
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Such a battered and repenting husband. |
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"If you ever come home drunk again, |
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I'll stitch you up and sew you in, |
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Then I'll pack my bag and I'll be gone, |
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I'll not live with a drunk of a husband." |
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Isn't it true what a wife can do |
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With a needle, thread and a stitch or two? |
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He's wiped his slate and his boozin's through |
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She don't live anymore with a drunken husband. |
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recorded by Mike Waterson, Martin Carthy, Max Hole |
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filename( STICTIME |
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BR |