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about
I found this 1891 song on a 78 sung by Pen Caws who was better known as Charles “Laughing Policeman" Penrose. The resonances with the East London I live in seemed so strong I couldn't resist adding the extra verse to bring it up to date. James Fagan suggested Matt Quinn would lay a great concertina part on it. He was right.
lyrics
If you want to see the bustle of our East-end London life
Tis a matter very easy, soon you’re in the busy strife.
“Here you are, sir, Mile End Road sir, Jump up here along with me”
O’er the bridge and through the city off you rattle speedily
Hear the busman’s merry banter with the cabmen on the way,
“Now then old-un, Come pull up there, Ain’t you had a fare all day?”
Up through Fenchurch Street he takes you, and before long you get down,
Amid the scenes you’ve come to visit in the wild, wild East of Town.
There you see the busy throng,
How they push each other along,
Some with a jovial laugh and song,
Some with woe quite undone.
Who shall ever stay that tide?
To the end it will abide,
Riches and poverty side by side.
That is life in the East-end of London.
See the coster with his barrow, loudly shouting “Buy, buy buy!”
“Fine and large, who’ll buy a marrow?” sells his lot feels bloomin’ dry.
Goes into a pub, close handy, but he knows the one to choose,
Stops until he’s chucked out singing rorty songs and full of booze.
Then on Sundays he and others take their donahs for a drive,
And to seat behind one gee-gee they can manage twenty five!
Off to Epping, good old Epping, late at night come home again,
No one knows which is his donah, each one shouts a different strain…
“When the Bloom is on the Rye”,
“Hi-tiddley-hi-ti-tiddley-hi-ti-ti”,
“Drink up boys and never say die!”
Never is the fun done.
“Gipsy Maid” must harmonize,
with “Two lovely fine black eyes”,
“Happy go lucky the coster boys!”,
That is life in the East-end of London.
Mark the Jew there, old clothes selling, swears the coat’s a perfect love.
“Fits you where it touches, does it? So help me fits you like a glove”.
See the loafing drunken ruffian, children clinging to his knee,
“Come home father, we’re so hungry, do come home to mother please”.
See the chickaleary joker, does the dipping, knows his game,
See the outcast on the pavement, once so pure now lost to shame.
See the heartless wealthy sweater, fat and sleek and knows his book,
The upon his toil-worn victim let us cast a pitying look…
Stitch, Stitch, Stitch, in poverty,
Every night and day is she,
For her starving children three,
Harder work by none done.
Stitch, Stitch, Stitch, while bread they crave,
Doomed to die the sweaters slave,
Her only rest is the paupers grave,
Such is life in the East-end of London.
Walk up Brick Lane to Shoreditch High Street,
Squint your eyes and try to see,
The barista in the coffee outlet, can I get a chai latte?
Commutes for hours from distant suburbs
Or drowning in the flood of wealth,
A tide of glass and steel and concrete
That blazes light but eats itself.
See the cleaner from the hotel, dreams of home across the sea.
See the broker in his Merc can sell you authenticity.
See the coster’s pub still standing, but lunch is a week of the living wage,
And the endless stream of data mongers, “reach out” and “scrum” and quietly rage.
Still you see the busy throng,
Still do the work but no place to belong,
Still the market, the bus, the lost ones,
Still the sweater strutting.
Who shall ever stay that tide?
To the end it will abide,
Riches and poverty side by side.
That is life in the East-end of London.
credits
from On The Roof Of Your House, All Alone,
released May 8, 2018
Written by Arthur West with additional lyrics by Russ Chandler.
Featuring Matt Quinn & Rachel Weston.
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