Working Girl Blues by Hazel Dickens

through my pain
    Yes I love to sing the dear old songs I sang down through the years
    Like hark don’t you hear the turtle dove
    I sang when I was but three
    Chorus:
    The bower of prayer my native home
    I sang when I was quite young
    The dear old songs the good old songs
    Have stood by me for so long!
    Now my passing years have not been kind
    My dimming eyes have slipped away from me
    Oh but when I take that old book out
    I can see as plain as day
    And across the green fields and mountainside
    Down the old back roads of home
    I meet my loved ones there oh the joy we share
    When I sing those dear old songs
    Repeat Chorus

    Â 
Old Calloused Hands
    This was written in the early ‘70s for one of my sisters. She married a coal miner and had nine children. But except for maybe the very early years, it never seemed to be a good marriage. She had to work really hard all her life. Before she married, she worked as a domestic, cooking and cleaning for the bosses at the mines, and later in a factory and laundry. One day during a visit to my parents’ house in Baltimore, she took me upstairs and told me how she was mistreated by her husband. He told her that she was no more than a maid to him, and that if it wasn’t for the cleaning and cooking she did, he would have thrown her out long ago. I was absolutely furious. I asked her to move out and come to Baltimore to live with us, and that we’d take care of her. But she wouldn’t do it, mainly because of the children. She never left him. He died of black lung, and she died of breast cancer. She was one of the best and most loving persons I’ve ever known. This song is for her.
Old Calloused Hands
    If you don’t think she’s had it hard my friend
    Just take a look at where this woman’s been
    Take a look at her old worn-out calloused hands
    Take a look at loneliness that never ends
    Old calloused hands don’t bring you much cheer
    When they’re all you’ve got to show for bygone years
    A few kind words a love song to draw near
    But her hard times didn’t leave such souvenirs
    Now she worked hard and slaved her life away
    For her husband and for her family
    Now she’s shoved aside like some old worn-out shoe
    That’s her reward for all that she’s been through
    Her tears you’ll never see ’neath all that pride
    And the things she long hoped for she’s put aside
    I look at her and Lord I wanna cry
    To think how many times that woman died
    Old calloused hands don’t bring you much cheer
    When you’re left behind like all the forgotten years
    A few kind words a love song to draw near
    But her hard times didn’t leave such souvenirs

    Â 
Rocking Chair Blues
    Sometime in the late ’60s, I wrote this song about my parents. They had eleven children, and after the last one left home, following several other brothers and sisters up to Baltimore, Maryland, my parents decided to move up there as well. Most of the children were in Baltimore, except for three who stayed in West Virginia and never moved away. So my parents left West Virginia for good and moved up to Baltimore. They were happy to be near their children, but unfortunately they never did take to city life, and didn’t really fit in. They were old-fashioned and set in their ways and stayed home a lot unless they went to church. Most of their friends were from the churchand they were few in number. They missed the old crowd back home who they’d known most of their lives, especially the members from their church. So in their declining years my father said to my mother, “Sarah, let’s catch the Greyhound and go back and see the mountains and our old friends one last time.” They took that farewell trip back to West Virginia, and that was the last time they went home. They passed away in ’78 and ’79, nine months apart, and are both buried in Baltimore.
Rocking Chair Blues
    Rock on rock your blues away
    Old rocking