Tom Foolery.
A song by Randall Stephen Hall 2011.
I am a Peep O’ Day Boy
A White Boy and a fool.
Full of fears and fathoms.
I’m drowning in your rules.
Caught up in your mincer.
The chancer’s big estate.
Mangled by the memories
That stand to guard his gate.
I’m leaving for the city.
My children need a start.
The narrow streets they beckon.
From the narrow ground we bark.
The master’s dogs are chained up
So I’m off to seek a bite.
Go work up in the factory.
Replace my day for night.
Chorus.
Tom Foolery, Tom Foolery
Lord Tom, my master still.
He’s opened up this factory.
He has to pay his bills.
We stand in line and march around
Beating his big drum.
But nothing ever changes
For he’s still number one.
They’re sending a big squad of us
Off to the great war.
Lord Tom, he makes munitions.
They leave here from his door.
Barbed wire and rubber tyres.
A bayonet or two.
He’d like make some uniforms
To help us all help you.
Chorus.
It was a big adventure.
So glorious and proud.
Lord Tom is glad to see us.
He said to call around.
He’d like to give us work now
But he needs some men with legs.
So I sit out by the factory
Play music now and beg.
Chorus.
https://soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall/tom-foolery-7-6-12
Tom Foolery. 7.6.12
soundcloud.com
The song begins at a time when people are moving into Belfast and the bigger industrial cities throughout Britain and Ireland. They leave the count…