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Lancashire Operatives (Starvation)

from Cotton Lords - Songs of the Lancashire Cotton Famine by Faustus

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about

‘The Lancashire Factory Girl’ by ‘H. M.’
Preston Chronicle November 29th 1862
This poem uses its four-line stanzas to discuss different aspects of the subject’s life, and different characters from it, and though there is an occasional refrain of ‘all, all are gone’ there is a sense of narrative movement throughout. The speaker of the poem is the factory girl herself, and as a lyric poem we are encouraged to sympathise with the voice. But we have not yet identified ‘H. M.’ so it is not possible to ascertain whether this was written by a man or a woman, or to what extent the author identified with or was familiar with the issues being discussed here.
Faustus’s Paul Sartin has set this poem to music carefully transposing the mood of the original text into a sympathetic melodic structure, and the centrality of the individual voice is emphasised by the harmonic framing. Though some of the text has been altered slightly for musical reasons, the emotional resonance of the original is maintained in full and the use of the first stanza, with its sense of a cri de coeur, is used as a chorus. One of the many interesting things about this text is its affirmation at the end of a positive image of working-class female morality, with the speaker maintaining that she has kept her ‘reputation’ despite temptations. The last stanza explicitly refers to the causal link between the American Civil war and the closure of the mills.
(Simon Rennie)

lyrics

The Lancashire Operatives’ Appeal
(words: trad; music: Benji Kirkpatrick)

Pray help us, we are starving;
None can our sufferings tell,
God only knows the anguish
That in our hearts doth dwell.

Pray help us, we are starving;
And cannot work obtain;
To go about a begging
Runs sore against the grain.

Pray help us, we are starving;
This we could bear alone,
But wives and children clemming
Would rend a heart of stone.

Pray help us, we are starving;
Our chattels one by one
We’ve had to sell to buy us food,
And now the last is gone.

Pray help us, we are starving;
Bare boards are our best beds,
And thankful are, if we on straw
Can rest our weary heads.

Pray help us, we are starving;
Home drives us to despair;
No cheerful voices greet us
When we now enter there.

Pray help us, we are starving;
To our country we apply,
She promptly must support us,
Or we shall fall and die.

Pray help us, we are starving;
Pray help us in our need;
Pray help us now and freely
And God will bless the deed.

credits

from Cotton Lords - Songs of the Lancashire Cotton Famine, released April 26, 2018

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Faustus England, UK

‘’One of Britain's outstanding folk bands.’ - **** The Guardian
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‘The concept? To rescue contemporary folk from the curse of feyness…
Bloke-folk!... Fans of Led Zep III should take a thoughtful interest.’ **** Independent on Sunday ... more

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