The Unthanks: The Testimony of Patience Kershaw
January 27, 2012
The fabulaous Unthanks singing The Testimony of Patience Kershaw from their lastest album, Here’s the Tender Coming. The song is based upon the testimony given by a young women, Patience Kershaw, to an investigation by Lord Ashley’s Mines Commission of 1842, which looked into the conditions of labor in the mines. The Mines Act of 1842 that resulted prohibited the employment in the mines of all women and of boys under thirteen . No. 26. — Patience Kershaw, aged 17, May 15. My father has been dead …
Reblogging The Unthanks singing The Testimony of Patience Kershaw because it’s beautiful and because if you missed it first time around then there is a hole in your life that only this song can fill…
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I can’t bear the Unthanks. I really, really want to like them, but I find their droning style unbelievably irritating. I watched a Folk thing on tv last year (I can’t remember whether it was an awards ceremony or just a festival) and I was bewildered by the seemingly unanimous praise they received. I liked the songs, I just wanted someone else to sing them. Saying that, I feel the same way about Bob Dylan so I’m clearly not to be trusted.
Frankly, Wartime, I’m shocked. How can you not love The Unthanks? All those songs about death, domestic abuse, drunkenness and cruelty.
I cry like a child when I listen to this, so much so that I’ve had to take it out of the CD player in the car to avoid embarrassment at traffic lights. Mind you, you’re not wrong about Bob Dylan. Why didn’t he just pack it in years ago and settle down writing songs for The Byrds.