Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)

Subject: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 08:31 PM

Louis Killen's rendition of this night visiting song is incredibly simple and poignant. I transcribed it from The Bird in the Bush, Traditional Songs of Love and Lust (Topic TSCD479).

The meter is very free and I found myself at a loss to figure out how to notate the timing of the notes (measures of various lengths are probably required), but I've got the pitches and their positions relative to the words below, with the ornamental "twiddly bits" left out. If anyone else can take a run at the notation, that would be great.

Anyone know his source for this song? It's not mentioned in the notes for The Bird in the Bush. He's also got it on his album The Rose in June (Old & New Tradition ONTCD2005), which I don't have (yet).

~ Becky in Tucson

THE COCK

As I stood under my love's window one night,
I cried so shrill, as shrill, as shrill indeed.
My love she arose and put on her clothes
and come down and let me in.

Now when I beheld my true love's charms,
my heart beat so faint, so very faint, so very faint,
and I gathered her up all in my arms
and carried her off to bed.

Now in the first part of the night
we did sport and play, so pretty play, so pretty play,
and in the second part of the night
asleep in me arms she lay.

Now my love she had a cock, and a pretty crowing cock,
and it crowed in the morn so very soon, so very soon.
My love, she thought it day and she hastened me away,
but it proved to be the light of the moon.

Now the cock it did crow and the wind it did blow,
as I tripped o'er the plain, so very plain, so very plain.
I wished meself back in me true love's arms
and she in a bed again.

And I'll be true to my love as the sun do shine
all over the fallow, fallow, fallow, fallow ground
and if my love ain't true to me as I am to she,
well, I'd rather she was lost then found.

  Key: F
  C  F-E F-G  F-F   C  C      F-G-A  F   B 
  As I  stood under my love's window one night,
  
  C-B A    G  F       G  A       G  F       F   E     F G
  I  cried so shrill, as shrill, as shrill, as shrill indeed.
  
  C  F-E  F   G-A-G A-B C   C  A   B-A
  My love she arose and put on her clothes
  
  G   F-G  A    B   A   G  F
  and come down and let me in.
  

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 08:35 PM

Oops, the "C" at the beginning of the second line should be a lowercase "c" for proper abc notation of pitch (it's high C).

~ Becky

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 09:38 PM

It looks like the set that the Hammond brothers got from Farmer Mills (Beaminster, Dorset, n.d.), with the first verse omitted and some relatively trivial alterations made; some with reference to the text that the Hammonds had from Robert Barrett (Piddletown, Dorset, 1905), others presumably of Lou's own invention. Perhaps he got the title from James Reeves, who printed both texts as The Grey Cock (though he considered the connection tenuous: see The Everlasting Circle, 1960, 136-138); Barrett's set appeared in Brocklebank & Kindersley, A Dorset Book of Folk Songs, 1948, 7, as O Once I Loved a Lass, and in Purslow, Marrow Bones, 1965, 52, as The Light of the Moon; in the latter case collated with Mills' text.

I'm not sure what note-values you intend in the rough notation, but I'm guessing that it's basically Mr Barrett's melody.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 10:15 PM

Thanks very much, Malcolm.

~ Becky

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 11:04 PM

Farmer Mills' text is in the DT, come to think of it, though it has misleadingly been re-titled  WESTRON WYND (3). Mills is not credited, but Henry Hammond is mentioned (though only to be accused -without justification in this case, I think- of bowdlerisation); the text appears to have been copied from Reeves, but without attribution. No tune is given.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Cock (Killen)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 11:39 PM

Darn, didn't search on the right phrases to find that one.

Forgive my ignorance, but who are the Hammond brothers? When were they collecting?

~ Becky


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