She was! She was!

AKAI’ll Sing of Martha
Oh she was so good and so kind to me
First Published1895

Writer/composerDavid DayRoudRN10560

Music Hall PerformersSlade Murray
Folk performancesSource Singers
Dunn, George 1973 England : Staffordshire
Palmer, Freda 1974 England : Oxfordshire
Modern performances
I sing of Martha, my dear wife, her loss I deeply morn
She's left this world of care and strife and now I'm all forlorn
She used to call me Turtle Dove, to all my faults was blind
I never shall forget my love; she was so good and kind.

I can't forget my Martha dear
I loved her so becos'
She was so good and kind to me
She was, she was, and she was.

She'd let me fetch her errands in, and say I was a dear
And once a week she'd let me have a half a pint of beer
She'd let me taste the morning milk to see if it was sour
And every Sunday take me out for over half an hour.

The baby she would let me nurse, and wash it now and then
And never sent me off to bed till very nearly ten
Our eldest boy is very tall, his age is twenty-three
Dear Martha saved his left-off clothes and cut them down for me.

So good and kind was Martha dear, she'd let me scrub the floor
And once she even let me clean the knocker on the door
She'd wake me every morn at five, and let me get up first
To bring her up a cup of tea in bed to quench her thirst.

I never went out by myself; she thought it was not right
She'd take me off to work each morn and fetch me back at night
Especially on Saturday, and when I got my pay
She'd put it in her purse for fear I lost it on the way.

The allegedly “put upon” husband is common theme in folk and songs from the Halls. This one was sung in the Halls by ex-printer, Slade Murray in the 1890s.

You can hear Freda Palmer singing it here on the VWML site, with kind permission of the folks at Musical Traditions, taken from their CD Leafield Lass

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