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Hard Times Come Again No More

Written by Stephen Foster

A parlour song by American Composer Stephen Foster (1854). Despite being an incredibly sucessful composer and heralded as "the father of American music", he passed at 37 with 38 cents to his name.

LYRICS

00:00 / 01:04

CHORUS

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary

"Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more"


While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

There are frail forms fainting at the door:

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say –

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.


CHORUS


Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.


CHORUS


There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away

With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:

Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.


CHORUS


‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

‘Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,

‘Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave, –

Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.


CHORUS x 2

Tags:

USA, Nth American, Traditional, Slow Tempo, Death, Sad, Happy

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We acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal people of the Eora nation, upon whose lands we gather and sing.
We acknowledge sovereignty was never ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

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Numerous photos by Nick Ryden 

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