Ballads & Songs of Southern Michigan-songbook

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Humor		443

184 HARD TIMES With a theme which permits of wide variation in application, this song is a curious composite. Stanzas 1 and 7 are analogous to stanzas 1 and 6 in Lomax, pp. 103-105, stanzas 2, 5, and 7, to stanzas 9, 10, and 13 in Cox, pp. 511-513. Cox gives references to English and American broadsides and collections, no text of which corresponds closely with the Michigan form. The present version was obtained in 1934 by Mrs Maude Simpson, Detroit, from the singing of her grandfather, Mr. Seth Evilsizer, Alger, he had learned the song from Mr John Gibson, Alma, Michigan, during Grover Cleveland's administration.



so it is hard times wher - cv - er you go Come listen a while and give ear to my song Concerning these hard times, it won't take you long; How the people each other they try for to bite, And in cheating each other they think they do right, they think they do right; And so it is hard times wherever you go.

2	The baker he'll cheat you in the bread that you eat, And so will the butcher in the weight of his meat;