"Hard Times Come Again No More" (sometimes, "Hard Times") is an American parlor song written by Stephen Foster. It was published in New York by Firth, Pond & Co. in 1854 as Foster's Melodies No. 28. Well-known and popular in its day,[1] both in America and Europe,[2][3] the song asks the fortunate to consider the plight of the less fortunate and ends with one of Foster's favorite images: "a pale drooping maiden".
The first audio recording was a wax cylinder by the Edison Manufacturing Company (Edison Gold Moulded 9120) in 1905. It has been recorded and performed numerous times since.
The song is Roud Folk Song Index #2659.
1.
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard times come again no more. Chorus:
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
2.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! Hard times come again no more. Chorus
3.
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh! Hard times come again no more. Chorus
4.
'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more. Chorus
Jennifer Warnes, from her 1979 album "Shot Through The Heart"
References
↑ R.J. "The Fields of June". Southern Literary Messenger Vol. XXI No.8 (August 1855) Richmond, Va., p.503: "Among these may be mentioned that sad plaintive beautiful melody of Foster's—'Hard times come again no more.' Have you heard it? What an echo of sadness in it!
-:'Tis the song the sigh of the weary—
-:Hard time! hard times!
-:Many days you have lingered
-:Around my cabin door,
-:But hard times come again no more!"
↑ Sandford, Henry, Mrs. The Girls' Reading-Book. London: W. & R. Chambers (1876), p. 201: "It was in a sewing-school in Lancashire, during the latter part of the Cotton Famine, that the well-known song 'Hard times, hard time, come again no more!' first became familiar to my ears."
↑ Hubbard, W.L. (ed.). History of American Music. New York: Irving Squire (1908), p. 80: "Other songs beside those designated as plantation melodies, but all more or less impregnated with sentiment, now came rapidly from his pen and obtained a wide popularity not only in America but in Europe as well. Such songs as ... "Hard Times Come Again No More," ... have become familiar to many nationalities."