Ballad of the Carpenter

DESCRIPTION: "Jesus was a working man, A hero as you shall hear, He was born in the slums of Bethlehem...." From a young age, his arguments put older men to shame. He traveled and called workers to him. The Romans kill him. Now his dreams are coming true
AUTHOR: Ewan MacColl
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (Cray-AshGrove)
KEYWORDS: Jesus death worker
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cray-AshGrove, pp. 30-31, "Jesus Was a Working Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [125 words]: According to Ewan MacColl's book Journeyman: An Autobiography, re-edited and with an introduction by Peggy Seeger, 1990; revised edition, Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 268, this was one of the songs that came out of his first serious period of songwriting, when he was mildly influenced by Woody Guthrie, Seamus Ennis, and people he knew of through Alan Lomax. MacColl wrote that "I had recently become acquainted with English country songs through Bert [Lloyd]'s singing and through field-recordings made by Alan and it was these that provided models for my next group of songs which included 'The Dove,' 'The Trafford Road Ballad' (written for my son, Hamish), 'Cannily, Cannily,' 'Ballad of the Carpenter' and 'Go Down, You Murderers.'" - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: CrAG30B

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