The First Sheet · Parish of Thaddeus-upon-Avon
The Chronicle of Thaddeus-upon-Avon
To be sung to its own tune.
Recorded across two weekends in a scout hall in Papillion for the cost of the hall. The sleeve reproduces four pages of the parish register in Bordeaux's hand. Reviewers who assumed the register was a prop were not corrected.
- 01The Chronicle5:20
Opening track. Anne Fletcher appears in the register on page two, entered in 1988 in Bordeaux's hand and dated 1741.
The words, as sung
This is the chronicle of a place Kept in a hand, kept in a book Every birth and every death And what the weather took The chronicle of Thaddeus-upon-Avon Four hundred years and counting still Nobody asked us to keep it And somebody had to Anne Fletcher, born in April Of the mill, of the lower road Died the following January Which is written, and is owed You will say you cannot find it On the map you have at home That is a fact about the map It is not a fact about the village
- 02Thaddeus-upon-Avon4:40
The Byre is a field on the parish plan enclosed with the letter to the Ordnance Survey. Bordeaux has confirmed he has never travelled outside the United States.
The words, as sung
There is a river and a mill There is a church without a spire Forty houses on a rise And a field they call the Byre Thaddeus-upon-Avon Population: disputed Thaddeus-upon-Avon Ask anyone. Go on. Ask. The road comes in from the northeast And it does not carry on Which is the reason no one passes And the reason nothing changed I have never been to England That is a separate matter I know the depth of the ford in March And I know which roof will scatter
- 03The Miller's Complaint6:10
The mill dispute runs across four pages of the register. Bordeaux has said he did not write this song, he transcribed it.
The words, as sung
The miller says the weir is his The parish says the weir is not It has been forty years of this And the weir is where it was Hear the miller's complaint Written down in a fair hand Four pages, and no ruling And the water does not care He has a son who does not want it He has a wheel that wants repair He has a grievance he can recite And nobody left to hear it When he dies they will not settle it They will simply stop the file And the weir will go on being where it is For another little while
- 04What the Well Knows5:50
The entry referred to in verse two is on a page of the register that Bordeaux has declined to photograph.
The words, as sung
Every house has walked that path Every hand has hauled that rope Four hundred years of buckets And the same cold in the throat What the well knows It does not say What the well knows It keeps There was a thing thrown down it In a year I will not name It was recovered. It was returned. The register records the claim. People want a village to be pretty People want a green and a bell I will give you the green and the bell And I will also give you the well
- 05Michaelmas4:20
The brightest thing on the record and the only track the band consistently opened with live.
The words, as sung
Twenty-ninth of September Rents are due and geese are fat Everyone who owes comes up the lane And that is more or less that Michaelmas, Michaelmas The year turns over here Pay what's owed and eat the goose And do it all again next year The Fletchers bring what they can bring The Sallows bring a little more Nobody counts it out in public That is what the parlour's for There is no moral in the harvest There is no lesson in the geese It is a date. It comes around. And we are glad of it.
- 06The Long Field7:30
The longest track on the debut and the first one the band wrote in an odd meter, which Hanneman has said he did not notice at the time.
The words, as sung
Eleven acres on the north side Ploughed since before the register Never once left fallow Never once been anything but this The long field Same shape as it was The long field And it will outlast the argument There was a plan to break it into three There was a meeting about it in the spring The plan was sound and the men were reasonable And the field is still one thing My father worked it and his did And I do not say that proudly It is not a virtue to remain It is only what occurred A field does not have an opinion A field has a slope and a soil Everything else that gets said about it Is said by men who need it to mean something
- 07Dave2:10
Written and recorded after Prager had joined but dated to the first record, which the archive notes as the only chronological inconsistency in the band's catalogue. Bordeaux has been asked about it. He has said the song is correctly placed.
The words, as sung
There is a man in this village Who came here from somewhere else He did not take a name He did not need one He does the work. He does it well. He is here on the day he says. And when they ask him where he's from He says you would have to ask. Every village has one. The one who came and stayed and did not change. He is as much of here as any of us. His name is Dave.