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"Hard Times of Old England" is an 18th century song from the repertoire of the Copper Family.
A 1955 recording of Ron Copper made by Peter Kennedy was published in 1963 on their album Traditional Songs from Rottingdean and was included in 2001 on Come Write Me Down and in 2006 on the anthology Anthems in Eden. Another Copper Family recording from 1998 is on their CD Coppersongs 3: The Legacy Continues. It was recorded by Billy Bragg and The Young Coppers on The Imagined Village, The Etchingham Steam Band on The Etchingham Steam Band and on The Acoustic Folk Box and by Martin Carthy on The Carthy Chronicles. The compilation's sleeve notes state: Child may have written down the songs; Sharp may have recorded them; but the Copper family of Rottingdean kept folk songs alive in the way they should be preserved—by singing them. Much adapted and strangely contemporary, this 18th Century song is from their repertoire.It was also recorded by Steeleye Span on All Around My Hat (1975), Peter Knight on Layers of Ages (2015), Whippersnapper on Promises (1985), The New Scorpion Band on The Downfall of Pears (2004). They noted: From the repertoire of the famous Copper family of Rottingdean in Sussex, this is a song of protest against the Europe-wide economic depression which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars and its consequences in the English countryside. The melody and form are taken from "The Roast Beef of Old England", written by Richard Leveridge, the popular composer and bass singer on the London stage during the first half of the eighteenth century.It is included in the Roud Folk Song Index as #1206. |