Lyr Req: 'we love you dear old Grace...'

Subject: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 09 Apr 98 - 10:45 PM

it was a camp song in the early 80's

we love you dear old grace for nothin' but your face...

she's a nyphomaniac sticks a clothesline up her cr*** and even worse than that she Fu***d a corpse and it came back

lines the bulls up in a barn takes a picture and cant wait to take it home to mast******

and so on add if you know it please pardon the fowl material

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 09 Apr 98 - 11:16 PM

You forgot your #*!+&^%*^%$# name....

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 10 Apr 98 - 04:58 PM

GOES TO SHOW YOUR MENTALITY!!!!!!!!! FOWL????????????

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 11 Apr 98 - 01:52 PM

I think the message is that this goes a bit beyond the 'bawdy ballads' that so many of us know and love and moves into gratuitous crud!!

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 11 Apr 98 - 06:13 PM

As I pointed out on another list recently, real traditional singers had pretty good taste. Even the bawdy ballads usually showed considerable wit and an interesting story line, and weren't just a pile of obscenities crammed into verse form. Art T. added something from his uncle. "It isn't good because it's old, it's old because it's good." That above isn't folk, old or good, and doesn't belong here.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 12 Apr 98 - 12:07 PM

some people have no idea what is considred to be a good song. this is trash and belongs in the trashcan and not here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From:
Date: 12 Apr 98 - 10:37 PM

I'm glad none of you objecters were involved in field work collecting folk music. No doubt many songs were lost because of the moral views of the collector. This seems to me to be a whole genre of songs, sung at smokers and stags and campfires.

I heard many songs similar to this when I attended an Anglican church boys' camp. These were the songs the boys sang in the cabins when the overlords weren't around. The overlords preferred songs like Climb Climb Up Sunshine Mountain, to which one boy composed a filthy parody, but the words have escaped me.

I will always rather be offended than accept censorship. Anyway, I don't know the lyrics to this one, but I would post them if I did.

Incidently, I too prefer the more subtle ones. There was a great LP released in the early sixties or the fifties by anonymous singers. "Cocky Cowboy" done in western swing, and "Joe's Joint", rather jazzy-bluesy, are two that come to mind although it has been years since I heard the LP. BTW, in one of Robertson Davies novels he mentions a song called The Stub of Me Old Cigar -- anyone ever heard it or of it?

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bert
Date: 13 Apr 98 - 01:26 PM

I agree with you Tim. Censorship has robbed us of many gems.

The one that always saddens me is the Cornish Nightingale. Lost forever are the wonderful things that must have happened "In the Valley below"

Also the objectors also missed the folk lore contained in the "corpse" line. Legend has it that Jack Shepperd wanted his body put to bed with a woman, convinced that it would bring him back to life.

Unfortunately many early collectors were SO SERIOUS that one wonders how many humorous songs, were also lost in a similar manner.

I have heard that 'The Sow Song' was not well received by the Dowagers of the EFDSS when it was sung at the Albert Hall back in the forties.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 13 Apr 98 - 02:34 PM

I, too, regret the expurgation of folksongs. Even Ralph Vaughn Williams did it. 'True' texts can not be recovered for many of them, unless one finds old manuscript copies where someone has made a copy of the song. But not all is lost. Maud Karples gave all of "The Old Sea Crab" in 'Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Songs', over a half a century after Sharp had published his incomplete version. I have several such old songs that do not seem to have ever been printed among the songs on my website. "Portsmouth's Farewell" is there to show how bad they could get at the extreme, not because of any other redeeming feature. It's not folk and not good, it's just old, and shows us how low the scribblers of political slander would go. Look at "The Stuttering Lovers" to see what Herbert Hughes did to a really old folksong. www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Earl
Date: 13 Apr 98 - 03:02 PM

It's not a "fowl" song afterall:

she's a nyphomaniac sticks a clothesline up her crAB APPLE TREE and even worse than that she FuMAGATEd a corpse and it came back

lines the bulls up in a barn takes a picture and cant wait to take it home to mastERFULLY DEVELOP THE PRINT

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 13 Apr 98 - 05:06 PM

I have a few like that on my website, 'Proper and close new ballad', 'Couragio'. The vile one mentioned above should have been "Portsmouth's Return". Less vile but still anti- Duchess of Portsmouth are a few ballads in my broadside ballad index.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 13 Apr 98 - 06:11 PM

----- (missing, non bawdy
***** (mising, bawdy
!!!!! (missing, vile
????? (what's missing?

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Apr 98 - 10:02 AM

Just to point out that avoidance of filthy material is merely a question of PC. And what is--and isn't--Politically Correct changes with the times. If anyone wishes to avoid tender feelings, it's appropriate to preface a song with a warning of some sort, but PLEASE---no censorship here. If what's available is limited to that which has passed through many generations' ideas of "acceptability", there won't be a hell of a lot left.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 14 Apr 98 - 10:26 AM

Political correctness or notions of morality changed not only with the times, but with the intended audience.

I read somewhere about 35 years ago that songs in 'Pills to Purge Melancholy' were oftentimes expurated. I thought that was nonsense, untill I had tracked down many earlier versions of songs in 'Pills' and found that it's correct. In the case of 'Pills' it seems to have been the publisher who had the stricter notions of morality. But about the time of the 1st edition of 'Pills', Jeremey Collier's famous book censuring the lewd content of plays came out, and this seems to have had a great influence on almost all media for a long time. (to c 1960?)

But again, it appears that the stricter the limitations on pieces for a mass market, the more lewd were the pieces intended for a more restricted audience. [Cf. The drolleries in late Commonwealth times, 1656-60. John Phillips (educated by his Uncle John Milton) was questioned by authorities with respect to his hand in one of the drolleries. He later wrote "The Merchant and the Fiddler's Wife" which I've heard sung by Ed. McCurdy and at folks festivals.]

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Pete M
Date: 14 Apr 98 - 04:57 PM

My access to the web was down over the weekend, and I think Tim has covered most of the points I initially wanted to raise. I would like to add the following thoughts however.

It seems to me that we are back in "What is folk" territory.

Firstly it is clear from personal experience that songs involving either "fowl" language or, more frequently the expectation of such language, (for example :

…A young lady who walked like a duck
and said she’d invented a new way to -
educate young children to sew and to knit,
while down in the caw shed they shovelled the -
contents of the cowshed from the back to the front
while the pretty young milkmaid counted the hairs on her -
cows back which were nine inches long,
and if you think this song's dirty you’re BLOODY WELL WRONG!!)

will exist and be embellished long after more "serious" efforts are lost. The retention relying mainly on exactly the kind of reaction elicited from the anonymous contributors at the beginning of this thread.

Secondly, I would suggest that any definition of folk must include, although not necessarily be limited to, the following:
1. be sung by "folk"
2. Exist in and be embellished by the oral tradition *independently* of any written or recorded versions.

On both counts then this genre must be included as "folk".

It is inevitable that within such a wide diversity that folk song covers, there will be subject matter and treatments that "offend" some people. My own particular interests are predominantly in the area of folk songs engendered and derived from the industrial tradition and I am sure that there are some Mudcat devotees who would find my views and some songs on the evils of capitalism contrary to their own, but the kind of reaction seen here seems to be limited to postings involving words in common usage for sexual matters. I can’t explain it, and put forward no comment other than to note this fact. I suppose my base position is that no one has the right to not to be offended if we are to enable a complete exchange of views and information in a global forum, and remember that as Mudcat members we should have more in common than we have to divide us.

Pete M

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Apr 98 - 05:17 PM

I don't even know what I mean by 'folk', so I don't let it worry me. The DT has a great deal of material I personally find offensive, but someone likes it or it wouldn't have gotten there. My suggestion is to take that which you like, and ignore the rest.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Earl
Date: 15 Apr 98 - 11:34 AM

I agree 100% that there should be no censorship. What makes the above request unpleasant is that we have the objectionable words but no song. Bawdy songs and even obscene songs can be a lot of fun but there should be some kind hook to the song beyond reciting the words. Now they can say "ass" on TV, which is fine, but they take any opportunity to talk about asses and it just gets tedious. Censorship should be forbidden but good taste encouraged.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 15 Apr 98 - 12:33 PM

Earl, I don't think there's really a way to encourage good taste except by setting the example yourself. This I tried to do in the Scarce Songs file on my website. So far no objections to my content (but I'm expecting some) even though I gave two rather vile pieces as illustration of the complete lack of taste of those engaged in political slander. I even left out all of Rochester's pieces that I came across in MSS (including his 'Sod's Opera'.) That's all available elsewhere, if that's what you want.

Subject: RE: Name of this song??? and add Lyrics
From: Pete M
Date: 15 Apr 98 - 04:33 PM

Bruce, I am in awe of the effort and scholarship of your site, and agree that we should all exhibit good taste, but what this is, is an entirely subjective judgement. To argue a case in point, the exclusion of the Sod's opera is entirely your perogative, and, since as you note, it is available elsewhere, no harm is done. Similarly, the robust nature of political and social satire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (again whether or not slander is involved is a matter of conjecture) could be argued to be a loss, rather than an advance. I think the point which I and other contributors were making was that the anonymous condemnation of a contribution merely on the grounds that it contained the expectation of a few well known anglo saxon words was more objectionable and in worse tase than the original post could ever be.

Pete M

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'we love you dear old Grace...'
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 11 - 11:30 AM

http://www.nomeanswhatever.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4100

here are the full lyrics to the song....it was by a band from the 80's named Crackers

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'we love you dear old Grace...'
From: GUEST,999 -- from Wikipedia
Date: 07 May 11 - 11:45 AM

Sweet Nightingale, also known as "Down in those valleys below" is a Cornish folk song which probably dates from the seventeenth century, and is said to be a translation from the ancient Cornish tongue.


Sweet Nightingale
'My sweetheart, come along!
Don't you hear the fond song,
The sweet notes of the nightingale flow?
Don't you hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As he sings in those valleys below?
So be not afraid
To walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below,
Nor yet in those valleys below.
'Pretty Betsy, don't fail,
For I'll carry your pail,
Safe home to your cot as we go;
You shall hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As he sings in those valleys below.'
But she was afraid
To walk in the shade,
To walk in those valleys below,
To walk in those valleys below.
'Pray let me alone,
I have hands of my own;
Along with you I will not go,
To hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As he sings in those valleys below;
For I am afraid
To walk in the shade,
To walk in those valleys below,
To walk in those valleys below.'
'Pray sit yourself down
With me on the ground,
On this bank where sweet primroses grow;
You shall hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As he sings in those valleys below;
So be not afraid
To walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below,
Nor yet in those valleys below.'
This couple agreed;
They were married with speed,
And soon to the church they did go.
She was no more afraid
For to walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below:
Nor to hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As he sang in those valleys below,
As he sang in those valleys below.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'we love you dear old Grace...'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 May 11 - 03:57 PM

Looks like the above song was added to this thread by mistake.

Anyhow, the song originally requested seems to be GRACIE, performed by Crackers on their album "Choice Cuts."

You can hear GRACIE at YouTube.