The Second Sheet · Parish of Thaddeus-upon-Avon
Heavy Ordnance
To be sung to its own tune.
The record where the flute stopped being a novelty and started leading.
- 01Heavy Ordnance6:00
Title track. The Ordnance Survey reply is reproduced full-size in the gatefold. One reviewer cited it as evidence for the band rather than against.
The words, as sung
We wrote to them in February On good paper, in a fair hand Asked a reasonable question About a corner of their land Heavy ordnance Southampton, by return Two paragraphs, and courteous And nothing we could use They said there is no such settlement In the county or in England Signed by someone in an office Who I am sure was being honest We put it in a frame that April It has hung in every room since It is the only letter that the village Has ever had from anywhere A map is a claim about a place It is not the place itself I would have thought a mapping office Would be the first to know that
- 02Beasts of Burden and Their Wages5:40
Wisniewski has said this is the only Ye Old Squirts song he would call political and that Bordeaux disputes the description.
The words, as sung
The horse is fed before the man That is not sentiment, that is sense The horse cannot explain a shortfall And the horse does not accept a promise Beasts of burden and their wages Oats and water, rest and shoe Paid in full and paid in advance Which is more than they do for you Three shillings for a man at harvest And the man will wait for it The horse will not wait And so the horse is never owed I am not making a comparison I want that understood I am telling you the order In which things get paid
- 03The Enclosure7:20
The hedge is on the parish plan. Bordeaux has confirmed that he drew it in 1988.
The words, as sung
There was common ground here once It is in the register, in ink Anyone could graze it Anyone could drink The enclosure Came with a surveyor and a chain The enclosure And the ground was the same ground Nobody was robbed exactly Every step of it was law There was notice given properly And a hearing, and a draw The hedge went in that autumn It is a good hedge, it still stands I have walked it every year since And it is a very good hedge You will want me to be angry It has been three hundred years The men who did it are all dead And so is everyone they did it to
- 04Blacksmith's Lung4:50
Hanneman worked as a blacksmith's assistant on the faire circuit from 1985 and has declined to say whether the song is about anyone.
The words, as sung
Forty years at the forge And the forge does not forgive He coughs the way the bellows go And that is how he lives Blacksmith's lung Every village has the sound Blacksmith's lung You can hear him down the lane He will not stop and no one asks him There is no one else who shoes He knows exactly what it costs him He has done the arithmetic When it takes him it will take him In the winter, in his chair The forge will go to nobody And the horses will go elsewhere
- 05Harvest Home5:10
The only Ye Old Squirts recording featuring more than one singer. The additional voices are the band and four people from the Papillion faire, uncredited.
The words, as sung
Last cart up the lane at dusk Everyone walks behind it Nobody organised this Nobody has to Harvest home, harvest home Bring the last of it in Eat until you cannot And begin again There is a song for this that everybody knows And not one person knows who wrote it It is not a good song And we would not take another This is the one night of the year That the village is one thing Tomorrow it goes back to being Forty houses and a lane
- 06The Tithe6:30
The four lines are entered in a hand Bordeaux has said is not his. He has declined to elaborate and the archive has not pressed.
The words, as sung
One part in ten to the church It is not a request It has been one part in ten Since before the register The tithe Paid in grain or paid in kind The tithe And the barn is very large The vicar is a decent man I want that in the record He did not build the barn He only has the key There was a year they could not pay it It is four lines in the book Four lines, in a different hand Which is how you know it mattered
- 07Nobody Came to the Faire5:00
Album closer. Written about the Grand Island washout of the previous autumn. Prager has said it was the best they ever played and that he never asked whether the others agreed.
The words, as sung
Rain from the Friday, all through the night Gates went up at nine Field was a river and the lane was a river And nobody came Nobody came to the faire And we played the whole of it Nobody came to the faire And we played it anyway The candle woman under her tarp The man with the belts, the smith They could not leave, their stock was staked And so they were the audience It was the best we ever played I have said that and I mean it There was no one there to be good for And we were good.