A Stitch In Time

(album: This Is The Day - 2001)

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
A hunk of a drunken skunk of a man
Such a boozy, bruising, bully of a husband

When he came home drunk at night
He'd thrashed her black and thrashed 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 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
A woman's eye and a seamstress' skill
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