Hard Times of Old England Retold by The Imagined Village

[midgiemarsh]

good song. One can be really creative in changing the lyrics. It's a nice version I like it

[kentishsteve]

11 people live in london with holiday cottages in the country.

[InquiringDeist]

This song should be our alternative national anthem. The words are so true.

[2dragonet]

This is happening all over, not just in the UK

They don't want the goods people produce and they don't want to pay people a day's wage for fair work. I'm angry and I'm not job hunting right now. I am just sympathetic.

[stinkymonkeyman]

Is it weird that I know the lyrics to this song and I'm not even British?

[hernhillrebel]

This dreary old man needs a bit of retail therapy.Why didn't he spend his millions on a facelift? Talking of post office closures it was his beloved marxist, pro e.u. government that brought that in.

[monamis1]

I love that, singer, players, chorus, sitar, fiddle and

[McGrenzer]

Good use of an old song--way pre-Steeleye by centuries--with updated words. Good work by Billy, the Carthys and all the rest! Not better, just different from the Coppers and Steeleye. Listen to all the versions...and enjoy!

[AEngleSaex]

Billy Bragg defining hypocrisy....

"More and more of our village get's sold every day, to folk's from the city who are happy to pay". How's Dorset when your there Billy?

Billy Bragg looks like the archetypal embarrassing dad, pissed up and doing karaoke complete with air sitar!

What an annoying twat!

[sjbrightwell]

@AEngleSaex LMFAO. But at least Bragg is out there speaking out about this stuff. Who else is doing that?

[TheRedflagflyer]

@AEngleSaex U prat, the song says 'for the holiday cottage to stand empty all day'. He lives in dorset and he's not even from from a city so wtf are u on?!

[dunebasher1971]

@AEngleSaex you've completely missed the point of the lyric. It's a reference to city-dwellers who buy *second homes* in the countryside and price locals out of their own villages - hence the following line, "for their HOLIDAY COTTAGE to stand empty all day".

[phonemonkey3]

Hard times England. Hard times Ireland. Let's face the Bankers, Tories, Corporations, the lackeys, the blacklegs. A fairer world beckons if we stand united.

[HippieJimi]

Jolly Good....

[Prydwen3]

What does that jerk Bragg know about the Hard Times of England. He buggered off from enriched multi-cultural London to some rural location years ago. He once claimed on the radio that songs collected by Cecil Sharp weren’t proper folk songs, all because they didn’t suit his so called radical outlook - what a donkey!

[pwei34]

To clear up Labour's mess :0D

[pwei34]

To clear up Labour's mess :0D

[pwei34]

To clear up Labour's mess :0)

[essexcath]

Oh dear. Tories back in :o(

[Clarice007]

Good, but Billy looks like a fish out of water. Cronge. Not nice to watch.

And what Maddy said about Steeleye.

[AdamsApple1963]

Billy Bragg!...and he did this song justice! I remember Steeleye Span's version of this.

[61Turboman]

Billy Bragg has the perfect voice for this song.

[lelapindore]

brilliant interpretation of a great old song!

[isgray]

Wonderful version of this old song. Bet old man Copper would be smilling.

[nbelsky]

It's like an obituary!

[LauraSeabrook]

ah, just listen to that sound :)

[Pedisace]

I don't suppose Billy Bragg 'll be appearing when they do L'pool will he.

[cubbykovu666]

I love it but it sounds better on cd Its great its so true makes me really proud to be English for some reason yey england

[LiverpoolPhilHall]

The Imagined Village are touring in 2010! Catch them live at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 18 January 2010.

[killyrboyfriend]

Oh I wish I could catch up with them on tour. I live in Canada so sadly, I will miss out on this spectacular event. This saddens me, we have all sorts of bullshit emo nonsense music where I am from. More image, less talent. Sadness ensues, I hope you enjoy yourself at the concert, have fun ! :)

[richc101]

killyrboyfriend - what about great big sea or the songs of stan rogers

[killyrboyfriend]

@richc101 Stan Rogers is brilliant and he was a loss musically, sad thing. I was listening to Stan Rogers this past weekend. Try Eric Bogle as well. Great Big Sea....well I know some people who know a few of the members and they are massive jerkwads. ..apparently.

[61Turboman]

You know what, live in the US with all the crap we have to listen to on the radio and this song is wonderful by comparison, dreary or not.

[palehorn]

This is dreary! It totally misses the point, which is things are crap but we'll dance anyway. Billy Bragg sings like a drain. The only decent bit is the bit at the end.

[GrilloTheFlightless]

I fully agree with Slightly Susan. Every time a musician changes a tune, loses a lyric, adds a lyric or changes a lyric to hid the panic at having forgotten one of the words then they become part of the folk tradition. Thats why we find so many, equaly valid, versions of the same song in Cecil Sharp House, and other places. I love it!

[mhagger5]

If i had the choice between seeing steel eye span and the imaginary village (again) it wud be the imaginary village!gr8 version, gr8 band. Good song that was brought to life by the imaginary village who are amazing!

I saw them in Cambridge, met some of them in the mojo tent, very nice people.

something else amazing about the year was the levellers. For their last song out came Billy Bragg and they played 'police on my back' originally done by the clash!

What an amazing mixture that was!

[SlightlySusan]

You would probably like the American group, Old School Freight Train, which does a ballad-paced version of Blondie's "Heart of Glass." Not that I think all rock songs need to be done as folk songs but I like what a musician can do with old material.

You might also like THe Red Stick Ramblers out of New Orleans who play Cajun, Blues and Roots Rock.

[Fireperv]

@mhagger5 Police on my back was the Clash covering the Equals, that's not to say it wasn't the definitve version, but it was an Eddy Grant song

[SPERANZA65]

trust billy communist bragg to murder this

[Maddy4Me]

Cool music, and very clever words, but a hard-core Spanner like me cannot forgive the bastardization of a Steeleye classic.

[rebellionsucks]

It wasn't their song to begin with...

[Maddy4Me]

That's as maybe, but whatever Steeleye Span touches turns to gold and should under no circumstances be altered! :D

[footpig]

Martin Cathy doesn't obviously agree with you

[SlightlySusan]

I think that every time an artist brings something new to a song, the rendition should be welcomed as a gift. Here, The Imagined Village is giving new life to an old song. We need the song now! Highly relevant!

[tranmere66]

Check out Chumbawumba's new version - superb.

[obugger]

@Maddy4Me missing the point there Maddy4Me, it's an update of a song way older than Steeleye. Folk music is organic and must change to reflect the times, that's how it has always been.

[kentishsteve]

@Maddy4Me your mad

[pegasusbridge44]

Interesting......... only ever heard Steeleye Span version.

[scarff94]

great :)

[Broomeister]

Can somebody help me out with the Countryside Alliance verse. I've got up to

The Countryside Alliance expects I suppose my support when their marching to ??????

But they said not a word when our Post Office closed

Can anybody help me out with the missing lyric?

[rebellionsucks]

Yes, I can. It's...

"The Countryside Alliance expects I suppose my support when their marching to bloody Blair's nose"

[Broomeister]

Thank you. That was bugging me

[Fireperv]

@Broomeister" Bloody Blairs nose"

[richardincm]

@Broomeister marching to bloody Blair's nose

[mikeymarmalade]

I saw these live in Leicester - amazing!

[ScroteMonster]

great take on a classic

[IndiemanBeech]

What an amazing line up! The Imagined Village for one, Plus the Carthy's and plus Bragg?!

Insane but absolutley amazing concoction!

Amazing rendition of this song also.

Wish i was there.

[hammer6580]

Thanks for that rebellionsucks, can now make a feeble attempt at this song myself. Happy New Year

[hammer6580]

I've been trying to work out the lyric in the second verse, he sings: when tescos turned up all the ?????? have gone can someonre help meout here? Thanks Hammer

[rebellionsucks]

I believe he sings

"Time was I could sell what I grew at the shop

When Tescos turned up all of that had to stop

Now I can't make a living out of my crop"

[jamesfeenstra]

Is that Eliza Carthy on fiddle and Martin Carthy on guitar? Quite the backup musicians ;-)

[blueswilly7]

you sir, are a moron

[rebellionsucks]

How happy is the moron, he doesn't give a damn

I wish I were a moron -- by god, perhaps I am!

[tavyred]

Hard times indeed for the English....we will be a nation again, come on Scotland set us free!

[selby750]

Beautiful song. must be a sound check for a festival. The album version brings tears to my eyes.

[o0micmac0o]

To selby750 - from clicking the "more info" box above - "The Imagined Village band perform this track live in The Big Room at Real World prior to their first performance at the WOMAD festival."

Great stuff - thanks for posting!

[tranmere66]

Excellent. Check out Chumbawamba's updated version from Stokes Bay 2008 - that's brilliant too.

[dabsy71]

It's good...but it's not Tull

[KingofRoath]

Valid point Reg

[jyamamo]

Very good! More restrained than the Steeleye Span version - really brings out the force of the lyrics.

[JennyJamx]

Wow! Seeing them live soon :)

For a 15 year old who loves billy bragg and the imagined village it's great to see someone, like Bragg break away and do something different. For me, it makes it more extraordinary :)

[zohar52]

Is it my imagination or is that the young Copper family doing the back-up vocals. Some of them look familiar?

[pwei34]

THis is a sort of Folk super-group: Bragg, Martin & Eliza Carthy! Who else is in it? Check out Steeleye Span's version to compare.

[LstCowboy]

Not sure what Jools has to do with it apart from getting him on the show. Give the band all the credit they are due and hope that someone like Amy Whinehouse doesn't try to hijack the idea!

[Countrybanburybill]

He hasn't....

[Countrybanburybill]

He hasn't....

[BobTheMunificent]

Much as I like The Imagined Village, Essex-boy Billy Brag wittering on about working the farm for five generations is not entirely convincing... Pity, 'cos the musical accompaniment is extraordinary. Other tracks from the same album are daily listens in the car (notably Cold Haily Rainy Night and The Welcome Sailor).

[itboxitboxitbox]

Come on - singing in persona is part and parcel of folk and country music. I'm reasonably sure that Johnny Cash never shot a man in reno either. ;)

[BobTheMunificent]

Yah, but you need something to hang your suspension of belief on to. Comparison with Johnny Cash is not the best choice. If you know anything about Cash you will know that he *did* live a life not a million miles away from the one he often sang about. He sung from his experience.

Compared with Benjamin Zephaniah's Tam Lyn Retold, the clunky lyrics and simplistic ideology of this sounds frankly embarrassing.

Oh, BTW, Brag now lives in the Dorset countryside...

[JackBrindelli]

i didnt no billy bragg had a band! when did that happen?

[Crazyoldmerc]

Surely working class rule is a contradiction in terms?

[rebellionsucks]

How so?

[Crazyoldmerc]

Wouldn't that make them then the ruling class? With all that entails in mentality, power, and perspective? Viz Soviet Russia.

[rebellionsucks]

Yes, it would be the case that, as a class, working people (from lower to middle class) would be most powerful - but that's democracy, isn't it? Majority rule.

[kharndog]

Most powerful and most hard up

[rebellionsucks]

We're already hard up...

[angelsea21]

Perhaps it the phrase is intended to be ironic?

[odjob87]

i AGREE

TAM LYN AND THIS TUNE STICK OUT AS THE BEST 4ME ON THE ALBUM

[iloveken222]

The Imagined Village are truly amazing, and could well be the best live act I've ever seen!

[rebellionsucks]

I am not a supporter of Ken, so much as an opponent of Boris!

What does my espousing working class rule have to do with it, anyhow?

[ady24]

can't wait to see this lot at wychwood. bet they're great live.

[wheniamgoodandready]

dISCOVERED THIS GROUP ON jOOLS LAST NIGHT THEY ARE FANTASTIC! AND REPRESENT THE DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY BRINGING NEW INFLUENCES INTO AND ENRICHING OUR TRADITIONS

[fabcharlie]

they were brilliant wernt they! i went to their gig in london

[jay13jay13]

Ya man me 2. Jools for a Knighthood services for music.

[paulbweb]

Funny how you post this, yet you are a socialist who supports ken livingstone, a man who does all he can to bring hardship to the English

[bornandbreddon]

Brilliant on jools holland tonight!!!

Good stuff

[soliloquise]

Tam Lin is exceptional !

[verrejoputa]

I absolutely love this version of the song! The imagined village is fantastic, except for tam Lyn.

Glad to see folk music is still alive.

[tommo181234]

i think tam lyn is one of the best on the album.