Come All Ye Toungers

from Laugh While You May by Gráinneog

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COME ALL YE TONGUERS
Trad.
Main Vocal, Ben
Inshore Whaling in New Zealand did not last very long. The first stations appeared during the 1820s, but so heedless was the wholesale slaughter of juvenile Southern Right whales during this period that the entire population had been wiped out within thirty years and the entire industry collapsed.
Still, the tradition of employing workers in horrible conditions and paying them so poorly that they can never really rise to anything better has survived pretty well in New Zealand and still forms the basis of many parts of the economy, especially tourism and hospitality. We just hope that the spirit of resistance to this, summed up in this first NZ protest song can endure as strongly.

lyrics

Come all ye tonguers and land loving lubbers,
Here's a job cutting in, and boiling down blubber
It's a job for the youngster, the old or the ailing,
The agent will grab any man for shore whaling..

I am paid in soap,and sugar and rum
for cutting down whale and boiling down tongue
the agent's fee makes my blood so to boil
I'll push him in a hot pot of oil

Go hang the agent and company too
they're making a fortune off me and off you
there's no chance of a passage from out of this place
and the price of living's a bloomin' disgrace..

credits

from Laugh While You May, released June 19, 2021
Ben Cobbett - Vocals, fiddle
Helen Cobbett - Backing vocals, Tin Whistle, Bodrahn
Alan Knight - Backing Vocals, Guitar
Sammy Leary - Backing Vocals, Banjo
Andy Spence - Backing Vocals

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Gráinneog Auckland, New Zealand

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