Free Working Girl Blues by Hazel Dickens

tell the truth. However, when I was growing up, I was impressed by the love andkindness that was openly shared and displayed among the brothers and sisters of the old Primitive Baptist church. It was that and the singing of the old songs that stayed in my memories down through the years (not the preaching). Particularly at the end of the service after they sang the parting song, they go around and shake hands and greet each other, humbling themselves before each other with smiles and hugs and invitations to go home with them and share a meal. This kind of humility and harmonious spirit of a common people inspired me to write this song as a tribute to that place and time tucked away in the corner of my memory.
Won’t You Come and Sing for Me?
    I feel the shadows now upon me
    And fair angels beyond me
    Before I go dear Christian brothers
    Won’t you come and sing for me
    Chorus:
    Sing the hymns we sang together
    That plain little church with the benches all worn
    How dear to my heart how precious the moments
    We stood shaking hands and singing the songs
    My burdens heavy my way has grown weary
    And I have traveled a road that was long
    It would warm this old heart my brothers
    If you’d come and sing one song
    In my home beyond that dark river
    Your dear faces no more I’ll see
    Until we meet where there’s no more sad partings
    Won’t you come and sing for me
    Repeat Chorus

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Only the Lonely
    When I wrote this song, I was experiencing a lot of loneliness. Many things were happening in my life on many fronts and I was not getting what I needed from those around me. I felt no one in the world could be as lonely as me. I felt an affinity with Lefty, Hank, George, and Kitty and others who wrote and sang such great lonesome songs. I felt too that I knew that lonely place inside of them that caused them to write such songs. I felt I’d been there. So when I began writing “Only the Lonely,” I had no idea in mind. It just started from a lonesome feeling and I began singing that feeling. “Only the lonely, lonely, lonely, only the lonely will know.” Although the song was very personal, I thought it might bring some comfort to those who experience feelings of loneliness in their lives from time to time, to know there are others out there who understand and share those feelings.
Only the Lonely
    Chorus:
    Only the lonely, lonely, lonely
    Only the lonely will know
    I’ve spent a lifetime searching for some kind
    Of contentment here in my soul
    Just a little sunshine, only sometimes
    And a place to come in from the cold
    Sing Chorus
    Lost and lonely longing for only
    One ray of hope in this dark well of time
    Hearts that’s forsaken left silently breaking
    Shipwrecked and lost on life’s stormy sea
    Repeat Chorus

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Rambling Woman
    This song from the early ‘70s usually gets a few knowing grins from both the male and female audience. It’s sort of a rebuttal against all those songs about “rambling men.” “Don’t fall in love with me, darling, I’m a rambler.” “I’m gonna leave her crying in the smoke along the track.” Part of me identified with the rambling impulse, and another part would like to have had a home-loving man, except when I want to hit the road.
Rambling Woman
    You’ve been handing me a lot of sweet talk
    About things you want us to do
    You talking about settling down
    In a dream house built for two
    Well I hate to disappoint you
    But I don’t fit into that plan
    For I’m a ramblin’ woman and you’re a home-loving man
    Chorus:
    Yes I’m a ramblin’ woman
    And I hope you understand
    For you know a ramblin’ woman
    Is no good for a home-lovin’ man
    So take all of that sweet talk
    And give it to some other girl
    Who’d be happy to rock your babies
    And live in your kind of world
    For I’m a different kind of woman
    Got a different set of plans
    And you know a