The Dalesman's Library Songtext
von Jack Rutter

It′s hard when folks can't find the work
Where they′ve been bred and born
When I was young I always thought
I'd bide 'mong the roots and the corn
But I′ve been forced to work in towns
So here′s my litany
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
Good Lord, deliver me

When I was courting Mary Jane
The old squire, he says one day
"I've got no room for wedded folk
So wilt thou wed or stay?"
But I could not leave the lass that I loved
So to town we had to flee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
Good Lord, deliver me


I′ve worked in Leeds and Huddersfield
I've had old honest brass
In Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham
I′ve kept my bairns and my lass
And I've travelled all three ridings round
And once I went to sea
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
Good Lord, deliver me

I′ve walked at night down Sheffield lanes
Was the same as being in Hell
Where furnaces thrust out tongues of flame
And they roared like the wind on the fell
And I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck
As black as ebony
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
Good Lord, deliver me

But now our children have all fled
To the country we've come back
There′s forty miles of heathery moor
Between us and the coal pit slack
And as I sit by the fire at night
I laugh and I shout with glee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
Good Lord, deliver me