The Recruited Collier
Traditional England
I used to enjoy accompanying Louis Killen on this song on the rare occasions we managed to sing together. I finally asked him to teach it to me. "Paid the smart and run for the golden guinea" – a bribe for the recruiting officer to let her man go.
Gordon – viol
What's the matter with you me lass, and
where's your dashing Jimmy?
The soldier lads have picked him up, and
now her gone far from me
Last pay day he went into town, and them
red-coated fellows
Enticed him in and made his drunk; he'd
have better gone to the gallows
The very sight of his cockade, it set us all
a-crying
And me, I nearly fainted twice: I thought
that I was dying
My father would have paid the smart and
run for the golden guinea
But the sergeant swore he'd kissed the book,
and not they've got young Jimmy
When Jimmy talks about the wars it's worse
than death to hear him
I have to go and hide my tears, for truth, I
cannot bear him
But aye, he jives and cracks his jokes, and
bids me not forsake him
For a Brigadier or a Grenadier he says
they're sure to make him
As I looked o'er the stubble fields – below it
runs the seam -* *coal mine
I thought of Jimmy hewing there, but that
was just a dream
He hewed the very coals we burn, and when
the fire I'm lighting
To think the lumps was in his hands, it sets
my heart a beating
So break my heart and then it's o'er; aye,
break my heart, my dearie
And I'll lie in the cold, cold ground; of a
single life, I'm weary