Digital Tradition Mirror

Cotton Mill Blues

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Cotton Mill Blues
(L. P. Blivens)

Come all you good people, I'll tell you somep'n true.
When you work in a cotton mill, what you gonna do ?
You get up before daylight,
Labor all day until it gets night.
Then you work a few days, get pale in the face,
Stand so long in the same dam' place,
Long comes the boss,  as hard as he can tear,
Wants you to think he's a grizzly bear.

cho: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
     Let the rich man live and the poor man bust.

When dinner time comes you'll have to run;
They'll blow the whistle before you're done,
Payday comes, you ain't got a penny,
'Cause when you pay your bills, you got so many.
Sometimes you rattle like a peckerwood,
Merchants outside tryin' to sell their goods,
Merchants' hair, just about gray,
Figgering how to get the poor man's pay.

When winter time comes there's hell to pay,
If you see the boss you'll have to say:
"I want a load of wood and I want a ton of coal,
Take a dollar out a week - I'll go in the hole, "
I'll have to buy merchandise at some chain store;
You can't afford to pay any more,
If you don't starve I'm a son-of-a-gun,
Can't buy beans without any mon',

You go to the store and the clerk won't speak,
Go downstairs,  grab a little piece of meat,
You can work all week,  you can work your best,
Can't buy your wife a ten cent dress,

Copyright L.P. Blivens
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!