Скачать или смотреть David Harley Gabriels Hounds Trad2Mad

This song was sung by Jon Raven on the album 'Songs of the Black Country and the West Midlands' by Jon and Mike Raven with Jean Ward. The words are by Mike Raven, and the tune is well known.
• 'Wedgebury' is a local pronunciation of the town the BBC call Wednesbury.
• The 'doggy' is a mine supervisor responsible for haulage underground.
• 'Gabriel's Hounds' are a type of Wild Hunt, flying noisily across the night sky in search of the souls of wicked men. Nowadays, they're usually thought to have been flocks of wild geese, but they were thought to be a bad omen, maybe of imminent death/disaster.
• The 'butty' was originally a charter master, a sub-contractor who supplied and paid seam workers. The term has also been used in the wider community as well as in the mines to refer to a friend or workmate, but I think it's clear that Mike wasn't using it in that sense here.
• The 'tommy system' or 'truck system' meant that workers were not paid in normal currency that could be spent anywhere, but (in part or wholly) in kind, or in a form that compelled them to buy everything they needed from the mine- or factory-owner's own tommy shop. The penultimate verse suggests that in this case the tommy shop belonged to the butty.
• The Whistler (or the Seven Whistlers) was the name given to nocturnal sounds resembling the cries of birds or wailing children. Like Gabriel's Hounds, they were considered an omen of death and disaster. An article of 1874 suggests that in the context of colliery disasters, they may have been generated by imprisoned gases and atmospheric pressure changes that favour underground explosions.
• Lazarus…Dives: colliery workers did tend to be better paid than occupations like nailmaking, not only because of the dangers of working underground, but also because these products were more suited to automation as the 19th century rolled on.
• I'm pretty sure the word is Moloch here -and neither Mike nor Jon are alive any more to ask for confirmation, sadly - and it may be that Mike had a specific regional meaning in mind, maybe connected to disaster records, or he might even have been thinking of more contemporary references like the film 'Metropolis' or Ginsberg's poem 'Howl'. In any case, to me the name suggests sacrifice, oligarchy, and even machinery. Or I could have that completely wrong. :)

If you hear barking early on the recording, that's from my neighbours' dogs, not a sinister supernatural visitation.