The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #7609   Message #1622516
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
08-Dec-05 - 03:35 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Tune Req: Eton Boating Song
Subject: Lyr. Add: Boating Song (Eton) 2
Pete M. made an unforgivable mistake when he posted the Eton Boating Song way back in Nineteen and Ninety-eight at the head of this thread.
Verse three, ist line should be:
Harrow may be more clever,
Rugby may make more row, etc.

Clever Harrow always precedes Rugby, according to an old Harrow man here. He pointed the Carmina version out to me.
Reference- Academy Song Book, No, 50, 1895.
The tune seems to be very close to the old melody, "The School of Jolly Boys."

Lyr. Add: BOATING SONG (Eton) 2
(Older version?)

1. Jolly boating weather,
And a hay harvest breeze;
Blade on the feather,
Shade off the trees.

Chorus:
Swing, swing together
With your body between your knees;
Swing, swing together,
With your body between your knees.

2. Skirting past the rushes,
Buffling o'er the weeds,
Where the lockstream gushes,
Where the cygnet feeds.

Chorus:
Let us see how the wine glass flushes,
At supper on Peveney meads;
Let us see how the wine glass flushes,
At supper on Peveney meads.

3. Thanks to the bounteous sitter,
Who sat not at all on his seat;
Down with the beer that's bitter,
Up with the wine that's sweet.

Chorus:
And oh, that some generous critter,
Would give us more ducks to eat.
(repeat chorus)

4. Carving with elbow nudges,
Lobsters we throw behind;
Vinegar, nobody grudges,
Lower boys drink it blind.

Chorus:
Sober as so many judges,
We'll give you a bit of our mind.
(repeat chorus)

Others will fill our places,
Dressed in the old light blue;
We'll recollect our races,
We'll to the flag be true.

Chorus:
And youth will be still in our faces
When we cheer for an Eton crew.
(repeat chorus)

Twenty years hence this weather
May tempt us from office stools:
We may be slow on the feather,
And seem to the boys old fools.

Chorus:
Bu we'll still swing together,
And swear by the best of schools.
(repeat chorus)

M. Taylor Pyne, Ed. Comm., 1894, "Carmina Princetonia, the University Songbook," Eighth Edition, Martin R, Dennis & Co., p. 50, with music.

Anyone familiar with "The School of Jolly Boys"?