There was a woman and she lived on her own, Slaved on her own and she skivvied on her own, She'd two little boys and two little girls -- She lived all alone with her husband. He was a hunk of a man A chunk of a man and a punk of a man, He was a hunk of a drunken skunk of a man Such a boozy, bruising, bully of a husband. He would come home drunk at night, He'd beat her black and he beat her white; Thrashed her to within an inch of her life, And snored all night like a pig, her drunken husband. One night she gathered her tears all round her shame Covered up the bruise and then cried with the pain, You'll not do that ever again, I'll not live anymore with a drunken husband. And that night as he lay drunk in bed, The strangest thought came to her head, She took up the needle and the thread, And went straight into her sleeping husband. She started to stitch with a girlish thrill With a woman's eye and a seamstress' sk**, She bibbed and tucked with an iron will, As she stitched all round her sleeping husband. The top sheet, the bottom sheet, too, The blanket stitched to the mattress through, She bibbed and tucked the whole night through Waiting for the dawn and her husband. He awoke with a pain in his head, He found that he could not move in bed, Sweet God in Heaven, have I lost me legs! She just sat and smiled at her husband. In her hand she held the frying pan With a flutter in her heart she flew at him; He could not move he cried, God damn! Don't you swear at me ya drunken husband." She beat him black, and she beat him blue, With the frying pan and the colander too, With the rolling pin a stroke or two Such a battered and repenting husband. "If you ever come home drunk again, I'll stitch you up and i'll sew you in, Then I'll pack my bag and I'll be gone, I'll not live anymore with a drunken husband." Isn't it true what a wife can do With a needle, thread and a stitch or two? He's sobered up and his boozin's through She don't live anymore with a drunken husband. recorded by Mike Waterson, Martin Carthy, Max Hole filename( STICTIME BR