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The Season Round / The Ploughshare

[ Roud 169 ; Ballad Index BrMa143 ; trad.]

The Ploughshare or The Seasons Round is a song from the repertoire of the Copper Family. Bob and John Copper sang it on the 4LP Leader box set A Song for Every Season, and Bob, John, Jill and Lynne Copper and Jon Dudley sang it on Coppersongs: A Living Tradition.

The Young Tradition sang this song as The Season Round in 1967 on their second album, So Cheerfully Round which got its title from the second-to-last verse. Peter Bellamy commented in the album liner notes:

Perhaps because the first eighteen years of my life were spent on a farm, the simple agricultural almanac that is The Season Round is particularly dear to me. Of course the song dates from older times, when the pace, even on the farm, was slower and more peaceful.

The last verse—a protest song if ever I heard one—was probably added by Jim or Ron Copper, the fathers of Bob and Ron Copper from whom we learned the song. Perhaps still more verses should be added in the same vein—the menace of the tractor to the old ways seems trifling now, compared to the advent of the artificial sprays, the fertilisers and insecticides. It is sad to think that perhaps it will not be long before the whole song is as much a piece of quaint but obsolete history as The Jolly Waggoner.

(According to the Copper Family's page of The Ploughshare, the last verse was added by Jim Copper.)

Lyrics

The Young Tradition sing The Season Round

The sun has gone down and the sky it looks red
Down on my soft pillow where I laid my head,
As I open my eyes for to see the stars shine
Then the thought of my true love runs into my mind.

The sap has gone down and the leaves they do fall,
To hedging and ditching our farmers they'll call.
We will trim up their hedges, we will cut down their wood,
And the farmers they'll all say our faggots run good.

Now hedging being over then sawing draws near;
We will send for the sawyer those woods for to clear.
And after he has sawed them and tumbled them down
Then there he will flaw them all on the cold ground.

Now sawing being over then seedtime comes round,
See our teams they are already preparing the ground,
Then the man with his seed-lip he'll scatter the corn
And the harrows they will bury it to keep it from harm.

Now seedtime being over then haying draws near,
With our scythe, rake, and pitch-fork those meadows to clear.
We will cut down their grass, boys, and carry it away,
We will clip it to the green grass and then call it hay.

Now haying being over then harvest draws near
We will send to our brewer to brew us strong beer,
And in brewing strong beer, boys, we will cut down their corn
We will take it to the barn, boys, to keep it from harm.

Now harvest being over bad weather comes on,
We will send for the thresher to thresh out the corn.
His hand-staff he'll handle, his swingel he'll swing,
Till the very next harvest we'll all meet again.

Now since we have brought this so cheerfully round
We will send for the ploughman who ploughs up and down.
See the boy with his whip and the man to his plough
Here's a health to the jolly ploughman who ploughs up the ground.

Now things they do change as the time passes on,
I'm afraid I will have occasion to alter my song.
You'll see a boy with a tractor a-going like hell
And whatever farming is coming to there's no tongue can tell.