The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #39728   Message #606721
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
09-Dec-01 - 11:01 AM
Thread Name: Tune Add: Missing tunes WANTED: Part SEVEN
Subject: RE: Tune Add: Missing tunes WANTED: Part SEVEN
The DT text seems to be a transcription made by ear from a Pete Morton record, Frivolous Love (Harbourtown Records; issued in the USA by Philo).  It contains some minor mis-hearings.  It is not a traditional version of the song, and is pretty obviously a modification of A.L. Lloyd's (also untraditional) modernisation of the ballad, which he seems to have based loosely on the text (without a tune) that James Duncan got from Bell Robertson of Aberdeenshire in 1915.  Exactly where the tune Lloyd used came from nobody seems to know, but it's a relative of one I've heard used for Little Sir Hugh amongst others.  Snuffy's abc is the tune Lloyd used; I don't remember how close to it Morton's recording was, but I'm pretty sure he used it too, as did Frankie Armstrong, who also sings a modification of Lloyd's rewrite.