The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #48684   Message #733440
Posted By: John in Brisbane
20-Jun-02 - 02:29 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Smuggler: 'My love he is a smuggler'
Subject: Lyr Add: ALL PURPOSE FOLK SONG (Gaiman, Garland...
Sorry if I can't find the song, but this will have to suffice for the moment:

ALL PURPOSE FOLK SONG (Child Ballad #1)

© 2001 Neil Gaiman, Lorraine Garland, and Emma Bull

Ah, my love he is a smuggler bold,
Impressive in his ardour
Or a minstrel or a pirate
With his thighs and arms so firm
With a mandolin or an angry grin and a dead wife in the larder
And somewhere around this point in the song someone normally gets transformed into a loathly worm.
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle dee
I'm singing of the forests or the tavern or the sea
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle die
You can cross out or forget about the bits that don't apply.

And my lover is come down from the sea
Or fens, or heather
Fair maid, he sings, oh show me to your chamber door
Or arbor,
And he means me well
Or ill
Or he ignores me altogether.

Well, I sent my love a message as they led me to the pyre
But he'd shipped off with Prince Charlie to be a buccaneerio
And the pipes of Faerie skirled and the cows were in the byre,
And we drank good English ale until we felt a little queerio.

Oh I care not nothing for your goose feather crotch
And I know you by the feathers in your you-know
And we bantered and we badinaged, and then she stole me watch
Then we sang and danced and lost our way all under the autumn moon-oh.
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle doot
No one's really listening and no one gives a hoot
Sing dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle, dum-a-diddle die
You can cross out or forget about the bits that don't apply.

Regards, John