The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #91036   Message #1847015
Posted By: Mick Pearce (MCP)
30-Sep-06 - 02:42 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Geordie Gill (from Anni Fentiman)
Subject: Lyr Add: GEORDIE GILL (from John Stokoe)
While looking for something else, I realised that this song was also published in a North-Eastern collection - John Stokoe's Songs of Northern England. The version is quite like the that in Cumbrian publication in the Farne Archive linked by Malcolm and transcribed by Jim above. I give the version below for comparison.

Mick



GEORDIE GILL

Of aw the lads I see or ken, There's yen I like abuin the rest;
He's neycer in his warday duds Than others donn'd in aw their best.
A body's heart's a body's awn, And they may gie't to whea they will;
Had I got ten, where I hae nean, I'd gie them aw to Geordie Gill.

Whee was't that brak our landword garth For me, when bairns we went to schuil?
Whea was't durst venture mid-thie deep, To get my clog out o' the puil?
And when the filly flang me off, And lang and lang I laid sae ill,
Whea was't gowl'd owre me day an neet, And wish'd me weel? 'Twas Geordie Gill.

Oft mounted on his lang-tail'd naig Wi' feyne new buits up till his knee,
The laird's daft son leets i' the fauld, And keaves as he wad wurry me;
Tho' fadder, mudder, uncle tui, To wed this maz'lin teaze me still,
I hear of aw his lan' and brass, But oft steal out to Geordie Gill.

From Carel, cousin Fanny com, And brong her whey-feac'd sweetheart down,
Wi' sark-neck stuck abuin his lugs, A peer clipt dinment frae the town;
He minc'd and talk'd and skipp'd and walk'd, But tired a gangin up the hill,
And luik'd as pale as ony corp, Compar'd to rowsie Geordie Gill.

My Geordie's whussle weel I ken, Lang ere we meet, the darkest neet;
And when he lilts, an sings Skewball, Ni playhouse music's hawf sae sweet.
A body's heart's a body's awn, And they may gie't to whea they will;
I yence had yen, now I hae nean, For it belangs to Geordie Gill.


Source: John Stokoe, Songs of Northern England, 1893

The notes say: "This spirited song is one of the productions of the Cumberland poet, Robert Anderson, whose songs are still the delight of all Cumbrians. A collection of his ballads was published at Carlisle in 1828. The tune is a well-known Scottish air, "Andro wi' his Cutty Gun."