The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #55904   Message #871584
Posted By: Joe Offer
21-Jan-03 - 01:54 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Jock Stewart-Man You Don't Meet Every Day
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I'm a man you don't meet every day
Hi, Ian - when we went to Whitby Folk week, Dick and Susan and I stayed in Eskdale, which is now a reasonably modern housing development on the south side of Whitby. Is the Whitby Eskdale the town of song and fable? If not, where is the well-known Eskdale?
-Joe Offer-
Here's the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index:

Jock Stewart (The Man You Don't Meet Every Day)

DESCRIPTION: (Jock Stewart) invites the company to enjoy his generosity. "So be easy and free when you're drinking with me; I'm a man you don't meet every day" The singer may talk of his well-built hut, his hunting trips, or whatever people discuss in pubs
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1935 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: drink hunting friend
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland) Ireland US(So) Australia Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 476, "The Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (1 text)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 161-162, 286, "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (2 texts, 2 tunes, heavily localized)
DT, JSTEWART*

Roud #975
RECORDINGS:
Hector MacIsaac and Jerome Downey, "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (on NFHMacIsaac01)
Cornelius O'Sullivan, "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (Victor 79126, late 1920s-early 1930s)
Belle, Sheila, and Cathie Stewart, "Jock Stewart" (on SCStewartsBlair01)

CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Bound to Australia" (meter, floating lyrics)
cf. "The First of the Emigrants" (tune, meter, chorus)
cf. "The Hard Working Miner" (tune, form)
File: R476

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2015 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.
And the Digital Tradition entry:

OCK STEWART

(CDEG) CG/CGF/CGC

Now, my name is Jock Stewart
I'm a canny gaun man,
And a roving young fellow, I've been.

So be easy and free
When you're drinkin wi' me.
I'm a man you don't meet every day.

I have acres of land;
I have men at command;
(And)
I have always a shilling to spare.
(And many )

Now, I took out my gun,
With my dog I did shoot,
All down by the River Kildare
(banks of the Try)

I'm a piper by trade
And a roving young blade
And many a tune I do play

Let us catch well the hours
And the minutes that fly
And we'll share them together this day

So, come fill up your glasses
Of brandy and wine,
And whatever the cost, I will pay.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The song is an Irish narrative ballad that has been shortened to
an Aberdeenshire drinking song. It is essentially Jeannie
Robertson's version, slightly modified by Archie Fisher in the
third verse so the dog doesn't get shot. It is alternatively
claimed by the Singing Stewarts to have been written for Bell's
father.

Recorded by Archie Fisher on "The Man With A Rhyme," Folk
Legacy, FSS-61, Copyright 1976.

The fourth and fifth verses are from the singing of Ian McGregor

@Scottish @drink @friendship @chorus
filename[ JSTEWART
TUNE FILE: JSTEWART
CLICK TO PLAY
DC