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KING COTTON (Mike Harding) See how the lint flies out over the moorland, See how the smoke to the valley clings, See how the slate roofs shine in the drizzle, This is the valley where Cotton is King. See how houses cling to the hillside, Hear how the streets of children sing, Wake to the scream of the factory hooter, This is the valley where Cotton is King. See how hunger has eaten the faces, Tired flesh to the bones just clings, There's dust in the lungs and the bodies are twisted, This is the valley where Cotton is King. Sleep is washed from the broken faces, Morning clogs on the cobbles ring, Off to the mill, the weavers hurry, This is the valley where Cotton is King. Work all day to the looms' hard rhythm, Scrabble and toil till your tired bones sing, Then you crawl back home as the gaslights flicker, This is the valley where Cotton is King. This is the land where children labour, Where Life and Death mean the self same thing, Where many must work that the few might prosper, This is the valley where Cotton is King. From Folk Songs of Lancashire, Mike Harding, 1980. Harding wrote: "In Newcastle and Durham it was Old King Coal who shaped the lives of the people, while in Lancashire it was King Cotton. This is not an historical song. The people with dust in their lungs and twisted bodies can still be seen walking the streets of the cotton towns and the houses are still strung along the sides of the valley, jerry-built, tumbling grey worms with smoky backs. A London visitor once complained to a Lancashire mill owner that the hoses he built weren't fit for people to live in... "Ah built t' factory for 'em to live in", the mill owner replied. "Ouses is nobbut fer sleepin' in". I wrote this song after a long walk along the Rossendale valley one rainy, smoky November afternoon." "King Cotton" was a common term. "Lint" is not a contraction of "linnet" (!) but simply lint; cotton-fibres. @mill @industry filename[ COTTKING MD Feb07 |
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