Working Girl Blues (8 page)

At the Brandywine Folk Festival in Delaware, July 1974.
Left to right:
Alice Gerrard, Old Belle Reed, Hazel Dickens. Photograph by Carl Fleischhauer. Used by permission.

The Strange Creek Singers at the Brandywine Folk Festival in Delaware, 1974.
Left to right:
Lamar Grier, Tracy Schwarz, Mike Seeger, Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard. Photograph by Carl Fleischhauer. Used by permission.

Hazel's family in the late 1970s. Front row,
left to right:
Velvie Woolwine (sister), Dovie Bailey (sister), Hazel Dickens, Beulah Cardwell Roberts (sister).
Back row:
Robert and Arnold Dickens (brothers).

Hazel Dickens

Mama's Hand

People took to this song like no other that I've ever sung. Of course in blue-grass you hear a lot of songs about mother. I've gotten more responses, more nice sentiments about this song than any other song. Lynn Morris, whose version won the IBMA's Song of the Year award in 1996, says the same thing. For some reason, almost every time I sing it, I can see people in the audience with tears in their eyes.

There was a very special bond between me and my mother. When I was three months old, I developed this condition where I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to take my milk anymore. I think that it's a common thing with babies. They have to give them something else to supplement their intake rather than milk. I was just literally wasting away. My mama would not have that. She wouldn't sit there and see one of her children die.

We lived back on a mountain where I was born. My father was out working somewhere, cutting timber and hauling it to the mines. Our family doctor had said he had done all he could do, that he didn't know how to treat me. Mama said she was going to take me to a baby doctor in the next town who knew how to deal with my condition. That was very unlike her. She
never went anywhere without my father. Oh, she might walk across the hill to a neighbor's house, but that's about as far as she would go. But she walked off that mountain in that heat, with everybody telling her I wouldn't last until she got me on the train. But she did it! She got on the train, went to the next town, and looked up that doctor. He said the only thing he could think of was to feed me crackers. How she got them down me, I don't know. She probably soaked them in water or milk. That's how she pulled me through.

I think it was probably a source of pride for her. I never thought about it until years later, but she brought me back home and pulled me through. From that time on it seemed like she kinda paid special attention to me. I remember sometimes when we had only one glass of milk, she would walk the length and breadth of this long table, right by my brothers and sisters, and sit the glass by my plate. I always felt real special when she did that. She always paid close attention when I got sick (and I got sick a lot). It seemed like the bond was there. We were going to stick up for each other the rest of our lives. If she got into an argument with my father, I always took her side. He was a very dominant man, and she was very shy. After I got grown I thought back on those days and tried to deal with some of those feelings and why there was such a strong bond between the two of us. I believe it might have been that incident. She could think this about herself: I have this to be proud of, that I pulled my kid through.

I said goodbye to that plain little mining town

With just a few old clothes that had made the rounds

I knew I was leaving a lot of things that were good

But I thought I'd make a break while I still could

As I look back to wave once more

To Mama crying in the door

For me and for what the world might have in store

For she knew I'd never be her little girl no more

She was drifting back to another time

When she was young and hoped to find

A better life than what her Mama's had been

And it was hard to let go of Mama's hand, my Mama's hand

Chorus:

One old paper bag filled with hand me downs

A plain old country girl raised on gospel sounds

With only the love she gave me, pride in what I am

And it was hard to let go of Mama's hand, my Mama's hand

I thought of all the love she gave, thought of all the years she slaved

To try and make this run down shack a home

A dream that really died before it was born

But she pulled us through the hardest times

And made us hold our head up high

A gift we carry with us all our lives

For we were oh so special in Mama's eyes

As I looked back down that dusty road

To Mama and her heavy load

I knew what I was leaving I would never find again

And it was hard to let go of Mama's hand, my Mama's hand

Repeat Chorus

 

A Few Old Memories

Oft times while rummaging through a closet where I keep most of my pictures, I run into long-forgotten old photographs of family, friends, and lovers. Many of them can take me back in time and bring back a lot of happy memories shared with friends and loved ones—back to places I'm glad I've been, while others can take me down roads I do not want to walk again—into seldom entered rooms and hidden recesses of the past, events I thought I'd buried long ago. I obviously ran into a few of those old ghosts back in 1982 when I entered the wrong memory one day. And before I could free myself and get out of there, I lingered a
bit too long
and lost myself in a few old memories.

Just a few old memories, that slipped in through the door

Though I thought I had closed it, so tightly before

I can't understand it, why it should bother my mind

For it all belongs to another place and time

Chorus:

Just a few old keepsakes way back on the shelf

No they don't mean nothing, I'm surprised that they're left

Just a few old love letters, with the edges all brown

And an old faded picture, I keep turned upside down

Just a few old memories, that go way back in time

Why I can hardly remember, I don't know why I'm crying

No I can't understand it, why I'm surprised at my self

First thing tomorrow morning, I'm gonna clean off that shelf

Repeat Chorus

 

You'll Get No More of Me

I got this idea for a song sometime in 1982 from a poem written by Michael Drayton, called “Love's Farewell.” It reads, “Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part. Nay, I have done, you get no more of me.” The last line jumped out at me, and I used that line to work from. I had no inkling of how to begin. I just put down whatever popped into my head, and figured I'd edit later. By the second verse the creative juices had started to flow, and when I wrote, “You have wrecked my heart, like a cruel winter storm bending my branches low,” I knew I was on to something. For it was the kind of poetry I'd been hoping for, and I knew instinctively that I was experiencing a new birth, and that I would call it “You'll Get No More of Me.”

As you go from me you want all that's left

The last shred of pride in my heart

'Till you've wrung the last teardrop from my eyes

You won't be satisfied

Chorus:

So take your cold, unloving heart

Your eyes too blinded to see

Oh you never found the door to this heart of mine

You'll get no more of me

You have wrecked my heart like a cruel winter storm

Bending my branches low

Oh your wayward heart and tortured soul

Leave no memories worthy to hold

So I'll take back my heart from the willow bough

I'll hang my tears out to dry

I'll hang my head in sorrow no more

And no more tears will I cry

Repeat Chorus

 

West Virginia My Home