Category: songs

trad 

 

Bert Lloyd wrote on the Watersons’ 1975 recording: “Idyllic songs, praising country pleasures, mostly belong to a time before the agricultural revolution of the 18th and early 19th centuries turned the smallholders into a rural proletariat with grievances. The Watersons got this one from Mick Taylor, a sheepdog trainer of Hawes in Wensleydale.” Mainly Norfolk says “There was some discussion on Mudcat whether the chorus should have the line “Merrily upon the laylum” or “Merrily upon the layland” with layland meaning fallow ground according to the Webster dictionary. Eliza Carthy says: ‘They sing laylum and take it to mean chorus.'”

The Watersons: The Watersons-Country Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV9M6x8PIJc

Chorus I like to rise when the sun she rises, Early in the morning. And I like to hear them small birds singing, Merrily upon their layland And hurrah for the life of a country boy, And to ramble in the new mown hay. In summer when the sun is hot We sing, we dance, and we drink a lot We spend all night in sport and play And go rambling in the new mown hay. In Autumn when the oak trees turn We gather all the wood that’s fit to burn We cut and stash and stow away And go rambling in the new mown hay. In Winter when the sky’s grey We hedge and ditch are times away But in Summer when the sun shines gay We go ramblin’ through the new mowed hay. In Spring we sow at the harvest mow And that is how the seasons round they go But of all the times choose I may I’d be rambling through the new mowed hay. Oh Nancy is my darling gay And she blooms like the flowers every day But I love her best in the month of May When we’re rambling through the new mown hay.

 

 

trad 

 

Alex Cumming: https://alexcummingmusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-cuckoo

https://alexcummingmusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-cuckoo

Chorus: Cuckoo in April Cuckoo in May Cuckoo in June But July flies away Cuckoo in April Cuckoo in May Cuckoo in June But July flies away Oh the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird She sings as she flies She tells us glad tidings She tells us no lies She plucks the sweet flowers To make her voice clear She never hollers cuckoo ’til the summer is near Oh greeting’s a pleasure And parting’s a grief A false-hearted loverÿ Is worse than a thief They’ll hug you and kiss youÿ And tell you more lies Than the green leaves on the willowÿ Or the stars in the skies Oh the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird She sings as she flies She tells us glad tidings She tells us no lies She plucks the sweet flowers To make her voice clear She never hollers cuckoo ’til the summer is near

 

 

Jon Boden 2009

 

From concept album ‘Songs from the Floodplain’, which creates a vision of a post apocalyptic future when industrial architecture is decaying and people are returning to a more rural way of life. Boden draws inspiration from his home in the Loxley Valley near Sheffield and its post-industrial decay.

Jon Boden: Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings – Dancing in the Factory – Cheltenham 11.2.11 1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MqJectXSO0

The news was on the church house door and all over the valley A storm cloud brewing in the east and wild fire in the cities And all night long the hammers rang, and those who could were leaving And those who stayed have gone to ground, and talk is harsh and fleeting Chorus: And all that I can think about is wood smoke in the valley Kisses in the fall-out shelter, dancing in the factory That closed so long ago And no-one ever goes there now We cling to words like children and seek for hidden meaning Long after sense has ceased to be and reason is receding But words have torn this world apart, and left us stooped and pleading We shovel dust and hide our hope, and wrap ourselves in dreaming Tonight the curfew bells ring out across the shrouded valley And all the candles flicker out and shadows claim their quarry But I will take the blackthorn path across the parish boundary Where ivy and barbed wire entwine and leaves fall all around me

 

 

Patrick James Rooney 1878

 

Brian Miller writes: “Rooney (1844-1892) was a ‘clog dancer’ who, along with his son, Pat Rooney Jr., had one of the most famous vaudeville song-and-dance men of his day. Irish performers like the Rooneys dominated American popular music in the late 1800s. This song was one of Pat Sr.’s few successful compositions. It was eventually overshadowed in 1908 by another baseball song, ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.'”

Brian Miller: https://thelostforty.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-played-baseball

https://thelostforty.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-played-baseball

Oh, me name it is O’Houlihan, I’m a man that’s influential. I mind my business, stay at home, me wants are few and small. But the other day a gang did come. They were filled with whisky, gin, and rum, And they took me out in the boiling sun to play a game of ball. They made me carry all the bats, I thought they’d set me crazy, They put me out in center field, sure I paralyzed them all; When I put up me hands to stop a fly, holy murther, it struck me in the eye, And they laid me out by the fence to die on the day that I played baseball. There was O’Shaughnessy of the second nine, he was throwing them underhanded, He put a twirl upon them and I couldn’t strike them at all; The umpire he called strikes on me; “What’s that?” says I; “You’re out,” says he. Bad luck to you, O’Shaughnessy, and the way that you twirled the ball. Then I went to bat and I knocked the ball I thought to San Francisco, Around the bases three times three, by Heavens, I run them all. When the gang set up a terrible howl, saying, “O’Houlihan, you struck a foul,” And they rubbed me down with a Turkish towel on the day that I played baseball. The catcher swore by the Jack of Trumps that he saw me stealing bases, And fired me into a keg of beer, I loud for help did call; I got roaring, slaving, stone-blind drunk, I fell in the gutter, I lost my spunk, I had a head on me like an elephant’s trunk on the day that I played baseball. The reporters begged to know my name and presented me with a medal, They asked me for my photograph to hang upon the wall, Saying, “O’Houlihan, you won the game,” though me head was sore and my shoulder lame, And they sent me home on a cattle train the day that I played baseball.

 

 

trad 1700s

 

The earliest known publication circa 1790. The song is associated with a mumming custom called The Old Tup involving a ram character, similar to Mari Lwyd in Wales, the Old ‘Oss, and Hobby Horses.

Chorus Wasn’t he a big one boys Wasn’t he a big one boys Wasn’t he a big one boys ‘Til the butcher cut him down As I was going to Darby, Sir, All on a market day, I met the finest Ram, Sir, That ever was fed on hay. The horns on this ram sir They reached up to the moon A boy went up in January And he didn’t come down till June The Wool upon his back, Sir, Reached up unto the sky, The Eagles made their nests there, Sir, For I heard the young ones cry. He had four feet to walk, sir, Her had four feet to stand, And every foot he had, sir, Covered an acre of land. It took all the men in Darby To carry away its bones It took all the women in Darby To roll away its stones The Butcher that killed this Ram, Sir, Was drownded in the blood, And the boy that held the pail, Sir, Was carried away in the flood.

 

 

Merle Travis 1946

 

Travis also wrote Sixteen Tons and is known for his finger-picking guitar style. Dark as a Dungeon was actually the B-side to Sixteen Tons.

Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine, And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.ÿ It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,ÿ ‘Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal. Chorus It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,ÿ Where danger is double and pleasures are few,ÿ Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine. It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day,ÿ Who lived just to labor his whole life away.ÿ Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,ÿ A man will have lust for the lure of the mines. I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,ÿ My body will blacken and turn into coal.ÿ Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,ÿ And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.

 

 

Nancy Kerr 2015

 

About our impact, how what we do and what environment is like colors the honey. Not long after Kerr moved to Sheffield and when her kids were very small a bee colony came over the wall from Burngreave Cemetery into her garden. The bees built a new home on the garden fence and only stayed a few hours but remnants of honeycomb remained for years afterward. The whole song came to her in the bath the day before a tour started.

Simpson Cutting Kerr: Dark Honey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHGjyzqpZNM

One summer evening and the kids ran free All the bees were swarming in the cemetery And they sucked that sweetness their natures crave From the flowers that grew on every grave Chorus: And you tell your children “life finds a way” You can reap dark honey in the dying day Leave a little sweetness to soother our stings And the slightest suffering winter brings Some other children, some distant home They fear the humming of a different drone Some sugar’s flowing from every pore Some hunger’s growing on the spoils of war On the bank of England, some city bee She built a hive of slavery And her sweet survival in the midst of ban Is to make dark honey from a Cola can When Man has driven the drone of bees From all the fields and cemeteries He’ll miss that richness his nature craves For no flowers will grow upon our graves

 

 

 

 

Beeswax Sheepskin

http://ellisnasqc.quickconnect.to/as/sharing/w8B3S30x/L011c2ljL0JlZXN3YXggU2hlZXBza2luL0JlZXN3YXggU2hlZXBza2luLzA5IFRoZSBEYXJrZXN0IE1pZG5pZ2h0IEluIERlY2VtYmVyXy5tcDM=

Weathering the northern winter takes a knack for hibernating Stack up every kindling splinter, you’re best off overestimating Provisions for the months of waiting One day you won’t hear the water Winter stills the river’s power Full the [moil] full to bursting Frozen in its finest hour Storm winds bring the bitter blessing, Wise old farmers take its measure Braced and ready, cold and cursing, Trusting almanac and rumor Grumbling half to hide their pleasure Only when the swamp mud buckles Press the seeds in, deep as knuckles And if the spring crop never flowers Take it up with higher powers Try to sleep, the forest snapping, All the pines are fishbone-brittle Old men pass the season napping, They say the frost is beneficial Feed the fire, bow the fiddle

 

 

Paul Davenport 2011

 

Melrose Quartet: “Ganseys are intricately knitted fishermen’s sweaters. Mary Cross of Flamborough told Paul in 1980 ‘There was a boy in the village when I was a girl, whom all the girls thought very good looking. To add to this, his mother was the best gansey knitter in the village…. That beautiful knitting was how they identified his body when he was lost at sea.'”

The Melrose Quartet: https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/davy-cross

https://melrosequartet.bandcamp.com/track/davy-cross

The Widow Cross had but one son and indeed he was his mother’s pride and joy So she knitted him a gansey, Cable stitched both fine and fancy And it looked like royal robes upon the boy Chorus: How we knew his bright blue eyes How we knew his golden hair And that gansey that his mother made was fine beyond compare Tall and bright was Davy Cross, with a shining face that never bore a frown How the lasses smiled and sighed at his strong and manly stride On a Friday when the fishing fleet left town At the dance on Saturday the lasses fairly swooned to dance with him As he held them in his arms, how they fluttered at his charms, And their hearts beat faster at his boyish grin Then one dark October day there came a storm which drove us hard to lea And our fishing fleet was tossed, yet just one single craft was lost Leaving Widow Cross a-gazing out to sea When just ten weeks were passed and gone, they finally brought us news about the loss Seemed a body had been found of a sailor lost and drowned And in our hearts we knew ’twas Davy Cross But it wasn’t eyes of blue, nor that hair as pale as foam It was the gansey that his mother made that brought young Davy home

 

 

Leslie Barker 2006?

 

To the tune of Irish song Raglan Road. Recorded by Martin Simpson & Roy Bailey in 2006; published by Barker in a poetry book called Rover the Rainbow. Barker is best known for his comic poetry, parodies, and monologues, including “Cosmo the Fairly Accurate Knife-Thrower”.

Roy Bailey & Martin Simpson: The Dawning Of The Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t6hT99oujE

I took the road on a winter’s day My soul knew naught but care The wind blew cold and I grew old In search of god knows where I left the bombed out city streets Where orphan children play Yesterday’s sons came bearing guns At the dawning of the day I took my heels to the farms and fields The land was dead and dry The poor were poor as they were before Just poor enough to die And the rich don’t care, the rich aren’t there Unfair, well fair don’t pay And how it is is how it was At the dawning of the day I laid my soul by an old stone wall And all the world’s despair Kept me from sleep and made me weep God was god knows where The world has turned with nothing learned It’s still the old old way A new sunrise, the same old lies At the dawning of the day I slept, I dreamed of an end to war An end to poverty But morning’s hand was on the land Sweet sleep deserted me Beyond the wall, greed standing tall Drove all those dreams away For he don’t care and he’ll be there At the dawning of the day