"O Dear me the World is ill-divided...Them that work the hardest, are aye the least provided"
The Jute mill song is based on the experience of women workers in Dundee who would work up till they had their babies and then had to scrape a living from pitiful wages. It reflects on the deep inequality in society. It speaks to a great many people then and now on how working for a wage feels like degradation with little to show for it at the end of the day. The lyrics manage to convey the lack of time in the workers life. Wage labour swallows it up and divides it into blurry sections called work and rest. They are always on the clock.
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