The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3064   Message #97758
Posted By: John Moulden
21-Jul-99 - 05:39 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: The Fenian Record Player
Subject: Lyr Add: THE FENIAN RECORD PLAYER (Crawford Howard
Here goes - I’m going to paste them in but I think that they may not retain their format when submitted - it’s happened before - if so I’ll try again.

THE FENIAN RECORD PLAYER
(Words, Crawford Howard. Tune: “Yellow Rose of Texas”.)

Wee Willie John McFadyean was a loyal Orange Prod,
And he thought that Ian Paisley was just one step down from God.
He thought they ate the “childer” in the backwoods of Ardoyne,
And he knew that history started with the Battle of the Boyne.

One night he took a brick in his hand and he wandered up the Falls.
He was mutterin’ “Up the Rangers” and hummin’ “Derry Walls”.
He bust a big shop window to annoy the Pope of Rome,
And he took a record player out and then he staggered home.

Next night they had a hooley in the local Orange Hall.
Wee Willie took his player to make music at the ball.
He choose a stack of records of a very loyal kind,
But when the music started up, he nearly lost his mind.

This Fenian record player was a rebel to the core.
It played the songs the Orange Hall had never heard before.
For “Dolly’s Brae” and “Derry’s Walls” it didn’t care a fig,
And it speeded up “God Save the Queen” ‘til it sounded like a jig.

It played the “Boys of Wexford” and “The Wearing of the Green”.
Such turmoil in an Orange Hall has never yet been seen.
It played the “Woods of Upton” and “The Men of ‘98”,
But when it played “The Soldier’s Song”, it sealed wee Willie’s fate.

The boys went clean demented. To the ground wee Will was thrown,
And they kicked his ribs in one by one to the tune of “Garryowen”.
They threw him out the window to “A Song of Old Sinn Féin”
And they kicked him all down Sandy Row to “A Nation Once Again!”

That Fenian record player was heard no never more,
For they prodded it with deacon poles and threw it on the floor.
But yet it was not finished. ‘Twas the funniest thing you’ve seen,
For the flashes flyin’ out of it were orange, white and green.

Wee Willie’s up in Purdysburn. He’s crazy as a coot.
He just sits there in his padded cell and tootles on his flute,
And when he tries to play “The Sash”, he always gets it wrong,
For halfway through, he always finds he’s playin’ “The Soldier’s Song”.

There’s a moral to this story. What it is I cannot say.
It may be just the ancient one that crime will never pay.
If you ask Wee Willie McFadyean, he says, “Ah, crime be blowed!
If you want to pinch a record player, do it up the Shankill Road!”

Some of the differences between this and Wolfgang’s are down to the singers whose version he transcribed. Some are due to lack of local knowledge.

Some words may need explanation:
“Childer” is dialect for children.
Falls and Shankill are respectively Catholic and Protestant areas of west Belfast.
Deacon poles are (I think) the poles which support a banner as it is being carried in procession.
Purdysburn is a mental hospital near Belfast.