Traditional songs re. homosexuality

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Uncle DaveO
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 09:51 AM

The song that I know (of) called The Soldier and the Sailor or which might be called The Soldier's Prayer has nothing to do with homosexuality that I can fathom.

The one I'm talking about is on Mike Seeger's Southern Banjo Styles, and at least as sung by him, is a highly moralistic little song.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 09:36 AM

Abby: See the thread "Origins: Soldier and a Sailor: The Soldier's Prayer". I can't figure out how to make a link to it.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. :||

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: greg stephens
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 08:29 AM

Re the query about the Sailors Alphabet. There is certainly a clean version "A is for anchor etc".
I was thinking of the alternative version that starts:

"A is for arsehole surrounded by hair
And B is the bugger who wants to be there".
    Not exactly great literature, but eminently traditional.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,padgett (at home)
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 07:52 AM

Hy guest didnt mean to imply that the Baby's name was trad but sung by Tom and Bertha, there is of course a wavy line/grey area between music hall and trad and a lot of cross over, if youll pardon the pun taking account of the thread!!

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 05:00 AM

The Baby's Name isn't trad, it's a music hall song.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 03:25 AM

GUEST Lighter, the liner notes state that it was collected from Stan Hugill.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Terry Duggins
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 03:18 AM

Where it says sining it should read singing-sorry

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Terry Duggins
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 03:14 AM

You can sing the song to suit what ever gender your singing about. Joan Baez always sang ballads where she was sining to a woman NOT a man.-And who cares as long as the song is done well!

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 04:47 PM

Chanteyranger, are those lyrics from Hugill ? Or have they simply been "re-dirtified" ?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,padgett (at home)
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 04:03 PM

Re refence above 'My proper name is Clarence but you can call me Clare' sung by the late Tom Brown (Tom and Bertha) from Worksop, Tom was a traditional singer and well documented ~ his singing of 'The Reed Cutters Daughter' and 'The Baby's Name'for example:

the song was written by John Mitch Mitchell from Worksop who is still writing 'em a retired nurse

Cyril Tawney recorded 'Ladies buya pint for your fella if you want your family to plan' etc again from Mitch

Mitch reckons I was the first to ask for My proper name is Clarence and to sing it
'the boozey Barnsley lads' also appear in one of his songs

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Abby Sale
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:41 PM

I found that at Amazon.com, Uncle - I can't tell what it is, though - a play?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:00 PM

Googled. Found this:
A Soldier's Litany. Words and music by E. P. Medley. Harmonised by A. B. Allen E. P Medley

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 11:41 AM

Margin probably bookmarked this thread

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Once Famous
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 10:58 AM

The Guest who made those limmericks is obviously a fag with sore hemmorroids.

I feel like I was hit with a feather.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Abby Sale
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 10:35 AM

Joe - I don't know of "The Soldier's Litany." Where might it be found.

Chanteyranger - yes, that's part of what I was trying to say above.

Dick - on the same good CD cited by Chanteyranger, there's "Asshole Rules the Navy." Is that the same song? The notes indicate only that it's a Royal Navy song.

It's certainly explicit & comic but I think anti-homosexual. Hard to tell.

I guess there are many, many "buggery" songs concerning the Royal Navy. Including http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=5249 - Sexual Life of the Camel. Of course, there are none at all for the US Navy.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 02:24 AM

The CD "Salty Dick's Uncensored Sailor Songs" contains the explicit, homoerotic lyrics to "The Shaver" that Stan Hugill could not get published.

One thing to consider is whether or not a song is about true homosexuality, or of about men in situations of expediency, where there are no women around for long periods of time (on a ship, for example) and they have sexual relations with each other as the only outlet for their carnal desires.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Gurney
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 01:39 AM

Thanks, Joe. When I performed regularly I learned a whole slew of songs for special occasions, like 'the Man-eating Shark' for a sub-aqua club, The Man at the Nore' and 'Jenny Wren Bride' and 'Stripy and Blondie' for a PO's mess. Don't think I've heard them for 30 years.
I didn't, of course, sing them in front of Cyril, and I did acknowledge that I learned them from him.

How to define 'Traditional' is a bit difficult, though, and a parody of a song that has a known author wouldn't qualify in my opinion. However, I will accept that your opinion, and anyones, is as valid as mine. Even a drunken rugby player's opinion.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Pauline L
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 11:40 PM

It is possible for men to love one another in a nonsexual way. Most of our culture is so homphobic that we often overlook this. I've seen a bumper sticker that says "Real men love one another," and the reference was clearly not sexual.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 11:38 PM

Given attitudes toward homosexuality before the 1970s, it's hard to imagine any openly and sympathetically homoerotic songs ever becoming "traditional" or even being sung in public.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 11:23 PM

I don't know of any trad homosexual songs, but think that they exist or existed, but were probably censored over the years.

I had a conversation with Bob Copper years ago, asking why his family didn't have any "bawdy" songs in their collection. He said that his mother (or was it his grandmother, not sure) had forbidden the writing down of songs with bawdy lyrics in the family's songbooks.

Bob said that his mother (or grandmother) really looked down on the singing of this type of song in their house. He said these songs were sung in the pub, and this was one reason women didn't go to pubs, or didn't feel comfortable with the idea of going to pubs. (Another reason is because pubs were physically very dirty, and the women did the washing.)

-Linda



.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 09:48 PM

Dunno how you're defining "traditional", but "Backside rules the Navy" would seem to fit in that bin.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 09:18 PM

Martin Gibson thought women quite scary
And sex too revolting to marry.
So he went out in curls
And frowned on the girls
Ang he got to be known as Fairy.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 09:06 PM

Martin Gibson, a raunchy old seaman
With his shipmates was really a demon
In peace or in war,
At sea or on shore
He could certainly dish out the semen.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 08:48 PM

Guest's lyrics are quoted from "Short Jacket & White Trousers," not "The Handsome Cabin Boy."

The only "Sailor's Alphabet" I know has nothing to do with any kind of sex. Would greg stephens please post his version ?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 08:38 PM

Gurney: "Stripey and Blondie" is not by Cyril Tawney, but is included in his anthology, _Grey Funnel Lines_, of 20th-century British Navy songs. It counts as traditional by my naive definition. Of course, it got its tune & plot from "Frankie and Johnny", but the details are different enough: the locale is Malta, the jealous Blondie blows up the whole bar (no rooty-toot-toot for her!), and, indeed, her rival is male, a fact that is mentioned with no fuss at all; the moral is simply "Never run an OD winger And a blonde barmaid as well". I would say that this song satisfies Glynis's query.

Another song that (at least in one version) takes bisexuality for granted is "The Soldier's Litany". After praying for a wench, the soldier & sailor pray for a boy (Amen, said the sailor, may he bring us great joy. And if we have one boy then may we have ten: May we have a bloody orphanage! Said the sailor: Amen).

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard of it. :||

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 06:14 PM

Biosexual, good one.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 06:13 PM

Gurney: the Good Ship Venus is blatantly traditional and blatantly homosexual(not to mention blatantly heterosexual). So is the Sailors Alphabet. There's two for a start.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 06:12 PM

Pentangle recorded a version of the Handsome Cabin Boy which (from memory)contained the lines 'One night upon the raging sea as we were going to bed, the captain said farewell my dear, I wish you were a maid. For your rosy cheeks and your ruby lips they are enticing me, and I wish dear God with all my heart a maid you were to me.' Sounds a bit what my mother in law used to call biosexual to me.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 05:47 PM

so why you read it eh

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 05:36 PM

There used to be a song sung by an old chap round here:-

My name is Clarence but you can call me Clare

Bet ya somebody knows it.

However the view wasn't an enlightened one

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 03:00 PM

Thanks alanabit. It's an honor I proudly will keep.

Guest, Clint Keller:

No closet for me pal. Music of the nature discussed in this threat I can only say is completely perverted, so you don't have to worry about me being something I'm not.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 02:57 PM

He basically knew that was the end of his carreer, true or no.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Abby Sale
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 02:15 PM

Thanks for noting that, Murray. Possibly we could both have been clearer. Looking back at my own notes:

Quoting Lyle in Greig~Duncan: Hector MacDonald (1853-1903) became a hero in Britain, and particularly in Scotland, following the spectacular part he played in the battle of Omdurman fought in the Sudan on 2 September 1889. He shot himself when about to be court-martialled on a charge which has never been divulged but which is presumed to have been one of homosexualty.

"Hector MacDonald," Greig~Duncan FS Coll, #141.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Arty Thieme
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 01:43 PM

The old lumbercamp song with the line "<(>When you and I were weary from sacking on the shore."

Art

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 07:04 AM

From Abby Sale's post above

..."General Sir Hector Macdonald, who committed suicide when on his way to face court-martial for homosexual activity" ...

That needs altering to

General Sir Hector Macdonald, who committed suicide when on his way to face court-martial for alleged homosexual activity.

There is overwhelming evidence that the charges against Hector MacDonald were trumped up by members of the Army Old Boy network who resented his meteoric rise to the top.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Gurney
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 06:11 AM

The Tawney song mentioned above is probably the parody of Frankie and Johnny, rewritten for the RN. I think it was called Stripey and Blondy, and Cyril MAY have written it, it has that authentic naval touch, but you'd have to ask him.

"You can stuff your sherry," said Blondy,
"and take your hand off that OD's knees!"
He was her man, but he was doing her wrong.

Hardly traditional.

Can't remember ANY blatantly homosexual tradional songs. Even if the two scotswomen above were bent, it isn't obvious in the song.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Glynis
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 05:30 AM

I have suddenly realised, having read back through the posts, that I should have worded this differently.

By 'explicit' rather than implicit, I'm not requesting graphic details, but songs where the existence of feelings of same sex love are made obvious, rather than implied.

Hope that's clearer.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: alanabit
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 03:52 AM

Oh I am sure that Martin has now successfully defended his status as the most UNhomosexual male on Mudcat. Congratulations Martin.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 12:36 AM

Perhaps it's in the ear of the… belistener? I recall a pretty soldier boy in the Post Entertainment section at Fort Riley who was enraptured by Harry Belafonte's 'Danny Boy.'

He was a dancer; liked to enter talent contests in his corset and net stockings. Some of the guys thought was a girl and tried to get a date with him; some knew he wasn't a girl and tried to get a date with him. All this in the Eisenhower '50's in the middle of Kansas and the middle of the First Infantry Division. And long before Rocky Horror. I can hardly believe it myself and I was there.

--Friendly advice to Martin: The most outspoken anti-'queery" I ever knew turned out to be gay himself. Be careful not to protest too much.

clint

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 11:28 PM

"My Buddy" and "I Only Want A Buddy Not A Sweetheart" are two songs that I never considered to have anything to do with homosexuals. "My Buddy" I always considered to be a song about loosing comrades in war. A friend said that they sounded like gay songs. I know they have both been sung by a number of prominent performers. Any thoughts on these two songs.
Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 09:00 PM

Not a chance.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:42 PM

Anybody making a general study of medieval Perisan literature?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:24 PM

"Oh yes and many of the Medieval Persian poems were open celebrations of homosexuality. "

Who but a homosexual would be aware of this stuff?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:56 PM

Never mind, I was wrong it seems.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:42 PM

Yes, sorry I ment to say handsome. A moment of absent mindedness.
Weren't sleeping quarters of cabin boys seperate from the rest of the crew?

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:19 PM

Guest, Allen said,

As to the Pretty Cabin Boy it's a bit hard to maintain privacy. Any number of ways she could have been discovered.

But remember, "Twas the captain found out the secret of the handsome cabin boy." Not the crew, whose sleeping quarters she shared.

Incidentally, "handsome", not "pretty" in the song. Though without doubt she was in fact pretty, when seen in that light.

Dave Oesterreic h

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:16 PM

That's no "old whaler's song." Trust me.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:10 PM

Oh yes and many of the Medieval Persian poems were open celebrations of homosexuality.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:08 PM

That's Wounded Heart, a very famous Pushto song. Women for them were something you got married with and had sons by. For pleasure they preffered sodomy. It's one reason for the uprising in kabul during the first Afghan War. That behavior frustrated the women so much that they went and acted very loose with the British. This is turn outraged the cuckolded husbands who were very jealous of their women's honour.

Subject: RE: Traditional songs re. homosexuality
From: GUEST,Cecil McBride
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 12:50 PM

It seems to me that the old whaler's song The Strapping Lad is a very clear recount of male-on-male relationships. Lines such as the following leave little doubt...

Twas south of Greenland's icy shore
with the lonely seagulls callin'
Where Allan became Eleanor
and dressed in a tarpaulin

or consider...

His feathered cap he wore askew
in manner bright and gay
bedecked with rings and ribbons
We'd watch him on his way

These lines are perhaps the most obvious...

He was a very naughty boy
though winsome in his way
and the Strapping Lad said "call me Dad"
and spanked him night and day

I am surprised that no one has mentioned this song as of yet.

Cecil McBride