The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4345 Message #3854700
Posted By: GUEST
13-May-17 - 12:01 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Bold Doherty
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bold Doherty
I just came across this thread while looking for confirmation of the lyrics as Dervish performs them, because they're sort of outrageous even for an old broadsheet (though Dervish gleefully sings Robert Burns' "The Ploughman," which is so dirty that if anyone modern knew what it meant, it'd be banned off the radio for sure - absolutely crack up every time I hear them sing it). I think it's awesome that this discussion has apparently been going on since 1998!
"Bold Doherty" is another one of my favourite of Dervish's repertoire, so I thought I'd add some speculation to the discussion.
First, I'm under the impression that the difference between the long and short versions is because the later one is an intentional parody. I don't have direct evidence, but compare it to "Twa Corbies" and "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye." There's a whole industry of parody ballads out there that rivals the original broadsheet corpus. The parodies are often wittier and better-composed than the originals; they stick around long after anyone forgot they were a response to an original work.
On to the language:
The title is important: "Don't be bold" in Ireland (at least in the early 20th century and previously, I've no idea if they still say it today) means "don't be a back-talking, misbehaving, cocky idiot." It's common enough slang that there's a helpful Gaelic translation for you:
http://www.bitesize.irish/inirish/3132
So calling him Bold Doherty isn't really a compliment. Americans will parse "bold" as a positive character trait (fearlessness), but that's not what's meant in 1800's Ireland. We're to know from the title that he's ill-behaved and mostly-useless and in the song we learn that he's living off the work of women; the parodied version just distills this concept till it's a lot funnier.
"Fancibles" (in this context) are sewing bits and bobs -- fancy things. The word can describe any fancy thing, and is certainly hard to dig up in historical context, but it survives in describing fancy foods
Another example
And Joss Whedon immortalized it in Firefly dialog (long page, CTRL+f for "Fancible")
The 1804 broadsheet seems to be a rambling narrative by a hapless guy who nevertheless isn't wholly useless - his Molly left him, but he'd drink to her anyway. He cruised the tinker's wife, but only after he'd helped the man as he was injured, gaining her favor.
And some more language details: His father was a pikeman in the army - who bore the staff and "ferrule" for his living, as respectable a career as could be wanted, for his class and time. And when his mother loses patience with his lying, wenching, and spending (after she gave him money, he didn't bring her back her fancibles!) she kicks him out, but he's got enough coin or credit to get lodgings elsewhere - he names a man, implying an inkeeper, and the use of the word "lodgings" is unironic. He's literally going to hire lodgings.
Finally, he thnks does OK for himself; despite how his family is scolding him for his "bold" ways, he's got comfy lodgings (a feather bed, a fine little chair), he's becoming a dandy (powders his hair) and he thinks he can keep leeching money off his women-friends and just wear fancy things and be useless as a lifestyle (that's the "cockade" he thinks he'll be decorating himself with).
(I have no clue at all who the old woman who ate without license is -- anyone have an insight?)
The original as transcribed above rambles a bit, and isn't as compact and clever as the re-working of it that's showing up in the modern recordings. The modern four-verse version depends on knowledge of the older version for a lot of its humor, and craftily (and sarcastically) re-works most of the lines to a different meaning. The cleverness of the parody is really witty, the wordplay and puns more streamlined, and the story both more compact and a lot funnier, since Bold Doherty's character is pared down to the key elements. He's now an archetypal loser without mitigating features. It's no wonder this is the version that survives.
In the meta-ballad, he never had Molly to begin with - it's a folly to even ask her, cause she knows better! Her folly grieves me withal becomes it's a folly to ask her at all. Just a few words, and a big character difference.
As before, he lies to his mother about needing hobnails for his (brandass new, totally not ripped up) shoes. But in this version, as someone noted above, she doesn't expect anything from her useless son, though the long-suffering woman DOES want her change back now - in the original she wanted fancibles and he wanted hobnails, and he was allowed to spend the rest on himself; the parody turns the word "fancibles" into a joke - he's not to bring any stray ladies home. The do/don't bring home things (and what things to/not to bring home) interplay is funny; the play on the term "fancibles" is funny, and now she has a concrete reason for locking him out - he spent all the change from the money he was given (maybe she figured out he lied about the shoes, too).
This is personal opinion, but I read "dividing a saucepan although they were arguing about the tin can" as a layered pun - they're sharing a drink in a tinware vessel, and "dividing a saucepan" sounds like something that a tinker would do as part of tinsmithing, but "dividing a drink" means to share it - they're getting drunk together. They're not working, they're jawing about it instead. Bold Doherty's bragging that his rep with womanising is so widespread that even the traveling tinkers are talking about him having slept with one's wife. The punchline is intact from the original, because it's a good one. But if you know the original, then it's funnier because you know the original explanation why he was "speaking with" (ha ha - euphemism) the wife, but in the parody, it just comes out of nowhere - Doherty's just sleeping with everyone's wife!
The punchline to the last verse is altered as well, with one name changed - instead of saying he can get lodgings at the innkeeper's, he's saying he'll go find "lodgings" (and that's another euphemism now) with a girl. He's just bouncing from woman to woman, and at the last pathetic verse, the sap's still thinking he's bragging - but he's got to go begging a warm bed from a woman.
He's just good for nothing.