Mrs Stress and Strain

I wrote this in 1968 at 17 but rewrote it 1978 after reading feminist writers

 like Juliet Mitchell, Sheila Rowbothem and more. Being a single parent, it comes close to home now!  I did this briefly with a Coventry band in 1980 - a Pentangle influenced band. The bassist was Selecter's roadie and we worked on a ska version of this although all of the musicians had gone folk rock. The band never got off the ground as Andy left to do Phd and I moved to Teesside to do a BA. I don't have any recordings of that version - this is just me and an acoustic guitar with the original draft of the song. This lyric was published in my 2nd collection of poems and lyrics - Poet Reprobate 1985

                                 

MRS STRESS AND STRAIN

When the sun’s out shining

Are you always ironing?

Does Steven need new shoes?

And Mary have the lover’s blues?

As life all around gets tense

Do you ask yourself

‘where is the sense?’

Now the milkman hasn’t been

And the rooms aren’t very clean.

There’s bills to be paid

On your mind they’re all weighed

Prices rising higher

Your state is getting higher.

Chorus –

Mrs Stress and Strain, To the kitchen sink you’re chained.

Worry haunts your life, And I can see you are the wife

Of Mr Toil and Strife.

“A women’s works is never done”

and the housework isn’t fun

Who else would work as hard as you

Such long hours, no rest due.

The stresses and the strains you bear,

The children and the mothercare!

And the beat goes on, day by day,

The isolation wears your soul away.

There’s nothing to show for all your work

You can’t stop a room from gathering dirt!

You feel you’ve got no life left of your own,

A permanent fixture, a doorpost in your home.

And though you’ll never make ends meet,

The adverts entice you to compete

With the image of an all-mod-con

Trendy space age super mom.

Should profiteers always hold the trump cards?

You’ve been dealt a hand of jokers –

What a façade!

Who’s the one they fall back upon.

Sometimes slave means the same as mom.

They never see the other side of you

Only what they expect of you.

Pinned down in a domestic situation

With little pills to ease your aggravation.

Sit down, sit back, light up and sigh,

Does your position in society make you cry?

“How hard’s the fortune of all women kind,                  

they’re always in fetters, always confined.

Bound down by parents until made wives

Slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.”

Chorus