| Tim Hardin – If I Were A Carpenter Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I hate to sound like a teacher, but here goes. Tim Hardin was a folk singer and we must consider that this is a Folk Ballad that is steeped in the history and traditions of British folk music dating back to at least the Middle Ages. It's related to similar folk ballads like "Barbara Allen," "Greensleeves," "Three Marys" and others. During the Middle Ages and for several centuries afterward, it was unheard of for a "Lady" to have anything to do with a commoner workman such as a carpenter, a tinker, or a miller. The song asks, "If I were a carpenter, and you were a Lady, would you marry me anyway, would you have my baby." So the speaker in the song is asking his true love if she would love him even if their love were absolutely forbidden by all social mores and conventions. Would she forget her noble birth and status to live with him as a common working man, and by so doing turn completely away from the fine things of life that would be hers if she married someone from her own noble class. A carpenter or a tinker would never be able to afford the "colored blouse" or the "soft shoe shining" because peasants wore clothes made of rough woven and naturally dyed fabric similar to flour sacks and gunny sacks and wore wooden shoes similar to clogs and called sabots. So basically the song asks if the woman would leave her world of high birth and luxury to live with a man who must work 16 hours a day trying to keep her from starving for the rest of her life? How many of us ever get to experience a love strong enough for such sacrifice, for such devotion? |
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