Digital Tradition Mirror

The Mother Country

(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

The Mother Country
(Benjamin Franklin?)

We have an old Mother that peevish is grown,
She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone;
She forgets we're grown up and have Sense of our own
     Which nobody can deny, deny,
     Which nobody can deny.

If we don't obey Orders, whatever the Case;
She frowns, and she chides, and she loses all Pati-
Ence, and sometimes she hits us a Slap in the Face,
     Which nobody etc.

Her Orders so odd are, we often suspect
That Age has impaired her sordid Intellect:
But still an old Mother should have due Respect,
     Which nobody etc.

Let's bear with her Humours as well as we can:
But why should we bear the Abuse of her Man?
When servants make Mischief, they earn the Rattan,
     Which nobody etc.

Know too, ye bad Neighbors, who aim to divide
The Sons from the Mother, that still she's our Pride;
And if ye attack her we're all of her side,
     Which nobody etc.

We'll join in her Lawsuits, to baffle all those,
Who, to get what she has, will be often her Foes:
For we know it must all be our own, when she goes,
     Which nobody can deny, deny,
     Which nobody can deny.

This, according to Vera Lawrence in her book Music for Patriots,
Polititians and Presidents, exists in holographic form in a
document by Benjamin Franklin; it's not known whether he wrote it
or recorded it.
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!