DESCRIPTION:
© WildGoose Records 2007. Available to purchase from iTunes, Amazon and other major download sites.
A song of protest from the Industrial Revolution. This explanation is from the Yorkshire Garland website, yorkshirefolksong.net:

"Croppers, although relatively few in numbers, played a central part in the activities of the machine-breaking Luddites in Yorkshire. Prior to the introduction of machinery to do the job they had been top-grade apprenticed craftsmen, trained to produce a smooth even nap on the woollen cloth after it had been woven. They cropped the woven cloth with heavy shears and were highly skilled, and relatively highly paid so had more to lose than most by the introduction of the machinery. Prior to this they had blacked any cloth produced in a gig mill and therefore had already shown their anti-machinery stance and solidarity with the weavers. Thus croppers joined the Nottinghamshire Luddites in raids on mills to break the machinery which resulted in desperate battles between mill-owners backed by the police and militia, and the Luddites, which resulted in much bloodshed and even death.

Great Enoch was the name given to a big hammer used to smash the machinery, rather ironically as it was named after Enoch and James Taylor of Marsden near Huddersfield who were the ingenious blacksmiths who invented the cropping machine."


Come, cropper lads of great renown,
Who love to drink good ale that's brown,
And strike each haughty tyrant down
With hatchet, pike and gun.

Chorus:-
The cropper lads for me,
And gallant lads they'll be,
With lusty stroke the shearframes broke,
The cropper lads for me.

What though the specials still advance,
And soldiers nightly round us prance,
The cropper lads still lead the dance,
With hatchet, pike and gun.

And night by night when all is still,
And the moon is hid behind the hill,
We forward march to do our will,
With hatchet, pike and gun.

Great Enoch he shall lead the van,
Stop him who dares, stop him who can,
Press forward every gallant man,
With hatchet, pike and gun.