A Stitch In Time Lyrics & Chords By Martin Carthy

Oh there was a woman and she lived on her own,
She slaved on her own and she skivvied on her own.
She'd two little girls and two little boys
And she lived all alone with her husband.

For her husband he was a hunk of a man,
A chunk of a man and a drunk of a man.
He was a hunk of a drunk and skunk of a man,
Such a boozing bruising husband.

For he would come home drunk each night;
He thrashed her black and he thrashed her white.
He thrashed her too within an inch of her life.
Then he slept like a log, did her husband.

One night she gathered her tears all round her shame;
She thought of the bruising and cried with the pain.
"Oh you'll not do that ever again.
I won't live with a drunken husband."

Her husband came home drunk each night
And he thrashed her black and he thrashed her white;
He thrashed her too within an inch of her life,
And then he slept like a log, did her husband.

But as he lay and snored in bed
A strange old thought came into her head.
She went for the needle, went for the thread,
And went straight in to her sleeping husband.

And she started to stitch with a girlish thrill,
With a woman's heart and a seamstress' skill.
She bibbed and tucked with an iron will
All around her sleeping husband.

Oh the top sheet, the bottom sheet too,
The blanket stitched to the mattress through.
She stitched and stitched for the whole night through;
Then she waited till dawn on her husband.

And when her husband awoke with a pain in his head
He found that he could not move in bed.
"Sweet Christ, I've lost the use of me legs!"
But this wife just smiled at her husband.

For in her hand she held the frying pan;
With a flutter in her heart she given him a lam.
He could not move but he cried: "God damn!"
"Don't you swear," she cries to her husband.

And then she thrashed him black, she thrashed him blue,
With the frying pan and the colander too.
With the rolling pin, just a stroke or two,
Such a battered and bleeding husband.

And she says, "If you ever come home drunk any more
I'll stitch you in, I'll thrash you more.
Then I'll pack my bag and I'll be out the door.
I'll not live with a drunken husband!"

Oh isn't it true what small can do
With a thread and a thought and a stitch or two.
He's wiped his slate and his boozing's through,
It's goodbye to a drunken husband.