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about
Kane's Shoe Repairs in Midleton, Co. Cork, shut its doors for the last time towards the end of November 2023. It seemed to me to be the end of an era, another tradesperson out of business and the trade of a cobbler dying out, just like the cooper Seán Dempsey in 'Rare Auld Times'.
I wrote this song as a tribute to David Kane and his grandfather, also a cobbler. It touches on how our society is now prone to buying new things instead of repairing them, and how faster machines are replacing hands at work.
100% of the profits from this song will go to Medicens Sans Frontiers to aid the crisis in Gaza.
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lyrics
LYRICS:
When I was young I was fit as a fiddle, hands working faster than a schoolteacher's riddle
Mending the leather and coaxing the suede, breathing life into boots that will float away
My father his trade was his joy and his pride, taught me all he knew til the day that he died
Warned that the trade of the cobbler might slow, from a broken society's ease to let go
Now crooked are my joints and slow are my hands, swollen my knuckles just like my old mans
Here's the Tale of the Cobbler to listen and chew
Tis out with the auld and it's in with the new
Well the years they went by and my babbies grew up, now they're constantly at me to give this place up
But this was my life and these shoes were me craft, to pack it all in jaysis you must be daft
But the years they grew tough and times are a -changing, can't get what I need from this 'internet haven'
Put out of business by faster machines, by a broken society torn at the seams
Now crooked are my joints and slow are my hands, swollen my knuckles just like my old mans
Here's the Tale of the Cobbler to listen and chew
Tis out with the auld and it's in with the new
With my wife and my kiddies I never will tire of the characters travellin' from Youghal to Glanmire
You'd never know who's 'bout to pop in the door, but this trade it is dying, soon t'will be no more
On the cusp of December on a cold Winter's night, these boots told me stories and glories survived
The tools on the walls took a hammerin' or two, time to hang up me boots and kick back for a few
Now crooked are my joints and slow are my hands, swollen my knuckles just like my old mans
Here's the Tale of the Cobbler to listen and chew
Tis out with the auld and it's in with the new
And just like the fate of the coopers, my trade it is fading and fading away
credits
released December 22, 2023
Produced by Brian Tambling at Síbín Records.
Guitar & bodhrán player - Ger O'Leary
Vocals, lyrics & songwriting - Róisín Barry
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