Come you ladies and you gentlemen and listen to my song,
I’ll sing it to you right, but you might sing it wrong,
It may make you mad, but I mean no harm,
It’s about the renters on Penny’s farm,
It’s hard times in the country, down on Penny’s farm.

FOR THOSE OF YOU that do not know about us and our music, I’ll try to give a reasonable explanation.

Peter began to play the guitar and banjo at Harvard, and he was a part of the folk music revival in Cambridge that produced many good musicians. Since then he has played at many places around the country and seldom refuses the invitation to play. He married Virginia Williams in 1967, and her usual contribution to music is patience while Peter plays “Just one more song”; however, she does join in here on “Hush Little Baby”.

I began to play the guitar in college, and I married Peter’s sister, Meredith, in 1971. Meredith and Peter have been singing together for some time, and I was delighted to marry into a band.

Since then, we have played as often as we can, but Peter and Virginia are now living in Alaska, and we only get together once or twice a year.

I should explain why this album is named after an old song which does not appear on the record. The song came to have a special meaning for me in the summer of 1973, when Meredith and I were visiting Peter and Virginia in their cabin in Alaska. It was just one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong, and both of the children were crying at full volume.

In their cabin, noise really echoes, and one child crying is hard to take, but those two were making life miserable for everyone. In the middle of this horrible din, Peter reached for his pipe, shook his head, and sighed “Hard Times in the Country!”

As you can see, there is no connection between that day in Alaska, the song, and this record, but that does not prevent it from being an acceptable title.—Alfred Scott

Peter, Virginia and Christopher Stanley. Meredith and Alfred Scott