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Poverty Knock
Last updated: 22.04.22
I first heard and enjoyed Poverty Knock sometime in the early 1980's on Wally Whyton's Forces Folk programme in Germany. Having recently (August 2014) set up camp in Sheffield this song seems perfect to extend my repertoire of Yorkshire songs. The version I use is taken from A.L. Lloyd's Folk Song in England wherein Lloyd writes :
... "Poverty Knock", recorded by A.E. Green in 1965 from an old Batley weaver, Tom Daniel, who had learnt the song some sixty years previously, at the first mill he worked in on leaving school. The old Dobbie loom, one of the early mechanical models for plain weaving, as it worked seemed to make the sound of 'poverty knock'! Hence the refrain in the song.
This being a weaving song there are of course Lancashire claims to its origin.
  Issue Instruments Performer
       
  MP3 File(s)    
audioextmp315.gif TYG: 14 Mick Haywood
  Midi File(s)   Sequencer(s)
audiomidi15.gif Midi Unknown
     Performer CD Title Supplier
       
cd15.gif Derek Gifford 40 Years in Lancashire
cd15.gif Roy Harris The Bitter and the Sweet CD(s) & MP3 Album(s) flag15uk.gif 
     Title Attribution Instruments Source Remarks
           
pdf15.gif Poverty Knocks (?) Traditional (music)
Joe Wilson (words)
Score, Voice York Garland