Captain Swing from Real Lives by The Living Archive Band

CAPTAIN SWING
Words & music: Paul Clark

For poor law pay, they’re forced to useless labour
A morning’s work, two miles a stone to bear
That afternoon they’re forced to take another
You’d think good men would use their labour better

Their families starve, they freeze through all the winter,
They steal to eat, so to a cart they’re tethered,
On market days, through Aylesbury streets they whip them
You’d think just men would treat their misery better.

Their fathers worked a whole year for one farmer.
From farm to farm they beg for each day’s pay,
Their only choice, the workhouse or the prison.
You’d think wise men could change their lives for better.

• Acoustic
• community
• documentary
• local history
• Milton Keynes