Henry's Songbook

Oh there was a woman and she lived on her own
She slaved on her own and she skivvied on her own
She'd two little girls and two little boys
And she lived all alone with her husband

For her husband he was a hunk of a man
A chunk of a man and a drunk of a man
He was a hunk of a drunk and skunk of a man
Such a boozing bruising husband

For he would come home drunk each night
He thrashed her black and he thrashed her white
He thrashed her too within an inch of her life
Then he slept like a log did her husband

One night she gathered her tears all round her shame
She thought of the bruising and cried with the pain
Oh you'll not do that ever again
I won't live with a drunken husband

But as he lay and snored in bed
A strange old thought came into her head
She went for the needle, went for the thread
And went straight in to her sleeping husband

And she started to stitch with a girlish thrill
With a woman's heart and a seamstress' skill
She bibbed and tucked with an iron will
All around her sleeping husband

Oh the top sheet, the bottom sheet too
The blanket stitched to the mattress through
She stitched and stitchend for the whole night through
And then she waited the dawn and her husband

And when her husband awoke with a pain in his head
He found that he could not move in bed
Sweet Christ, I've lost the use of my legs
But this wife just smiled at her husband

For in her hand she held the frying pan
With a flutter in her heart she given him a lam
He could not move and he cried, God damn
Don't you swear, she cries to her husband

Then she thrashed him black, she thrashed him blue
With the frying pan and the collander too
With the rolling pin just a stroke or two
Such a battered and bleeding husband

And she says, If you ever come home drunk any more
I'll stitch you in and I'll thrash you more
Then I'll pack my bag and I'll be out the door
I'll not live with a drunken husband

Oh isn't it true what small can do
With a thread and a thought and a stitch or two
He's wiped his slate and his boozing's through
It's goodbye to a drunken husband

(as sung by Martin Carthy)

Tune: On Board Of A Man-of-War

[1988:] A true story put into song by Mike Waterson about four years ago. It happened about 1962 in the Hessle Road area of Hull and the tune is that of a brutal Royal Navy song called On Board Of A Man-of-war. (Notes Martin Carthy, 'Right of Passage')

For info about wife-beating see Steady As She Goes