Subject: Funny, Traditional Songs From: thespionage Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:37 PM What are some favorite traditional songs with a humorous edge, broadly defined? Russ |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Georgiansilver Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:40 PM The sick note, The moose song, The threshing machine...there's a start. Best wishes, Mike. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:50 PM Soldier Oh Soldier (Will you marry me?) The Frozen Logger (don't know if that's traditional) The Swapping Song (Wing Wong Waddle) Eggs and Marrowbone Riding Down From Bangor Blow the Man Down The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn Three Jolly Rogues of Lynn Sweet Little Window Beans, Bacon and Gravy Kansas Boys Divil and the Farmer's Wife (The Farmer's Curst Wife) Jan's Courtship The German Musicianer The Grey Mare Phyllis and Her Mother Hi Ro Jerum Jan's Courting That's a few that come readily to mind from my own repertoire. Enjoy! Dave Oesterreich |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Don Firth Date: 22 Jun 06 - 01:57 PM My sweetheart's the mule in the mine. I drive her without reins or lines. On the bumper I sit And I chew and I spit All over my sweetheart's behind. (Learned from Walt Robertson). Carl Sandburg has a lot of pretty funny stuff in The American Songbag. The first one that pops to mind is "Horse Named Bill." Don Firth |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:02 PM The Sick Note ain't traditional. Pat Cooksey wrote it. Not sure about The Threshing Machine though it doesn't seem to be an Adge Cutler composition (I use the word loosely). As for The Moose Song, I've never heard of it but expect this is a Good Thing. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Russ Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:15 PM The Devil and the Farmer's wife/The Farmer's Curst Wife Eggs and marrowbones Little Tom Clark |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Russ Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:16 PM The Darby Ram Get up and Bar the Door |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Russ Date: 22 Jun 06 - 02:21 PM The Preacher and the Bear Oh Suzannah |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:14 PM Oh, oh! Not Oh, Suzannah. That's not only from an identifiable writer but a commercial-market song. Unless you're speaking more of the manner of dissemination it assumed rather than the source. And frankly, I don't see it as all that humorous. Dave Oesterreich |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:22 PM Derby Ram funny? I don't think so. What's funny about sheep murder? |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:37 PM It's not about "sheep murder". It's about exaggeration, which is a stock-in-trade item for humor. Killing the ram is incidental. Dave Oesterreich |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:46 PM Oh, sorry. Reports of the ram's death are 'exaggerated'. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Steve Benbows protege Date: 22 Jun 06 - 03:52 PM The mole catcher. Makes me smile anyway!! |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:01 PM 'Geld Him, Lasses, Geld Him'. Makes me smile anyway. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Johnhenry'shammer Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:07 PM Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man/washed his face with a frying pan/combed his hair with a wagon wheel/and died with a tooth ache in his heel... Funny stuff |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:26 PM Dan, Dan the dirty man Washed his face in a frying pan Combed his hair with a rusty nail And scratched his belly with his big toe nail. North-East England children's street song. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:42 PM For sure, "The Tune the Old Cow Died On." |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 04:51 PM Good grief, first dead sheep and now dead cows. Not funny. Just listening to Anahata and Mary Humphreys doing The Cuckoo & The Nightingale which is really funny (in a Geld Him, Lasses Geld Him sort of way, i.e. witty, not blokish stupid). |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:24 PM Queen Eleanor's Confession (assume it's traditional?) The Basket of Eggs (from the Penguin book of EFS so it must be! ;-) |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Georgiansilver Date: 22 Jun 06 - 05:52 PM Countess Richard...and how old does a song have to be to be traditional or how does it qualify as traditional....there are many contemporary songs which are becoming traditional...not because of age but because of usage. Perhaps we should have a debate on the true meaning of tradition. For three years, the barbecue has come out on Christmas eve and chestnuts are roasted on it...it has already become a family tradition if you get my drift. Best wishes, Mike. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Don Firth Date: 22 Jun 06 - 06:04 PM Not to worry. Not only is Queen Eleanor's Confession traditional, it's Child 156. Don Firth |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 22 Jun 06 - 06:05 PM A song's age doesn't come into it; if it has known authorship, it's not traditional. So a C16 William Byrd madrigal or motet isn't trad. There's many a 'contemporary' or composed (or trad. arr song or tune) that gets listed as trad, not so much because of 'usage' but through laziness in attribution or else to avoid paying copyright. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: captainbirdseye Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:11 PM the cunning cobbler,the crabfish,our gudeman or seven nights drunk the bald headedend of the broom,the rest of the days your own,my husbands got no courage in him. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Herga Kitty Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:19 PM One person's humorous song is someone else's tragedy, The Tailor's Breeches, Won'tyou come down to Yarmouth Town,the Poor Lonely Widow, the Widow of the West Moorland, Compliments returned, Shepherd oh shepherd won't you come home, Butter and Cheese and all, Wop she ad it, the Christmas Goose,three jolly sportsmen, Gossip Joan |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Amos Date: 22 Jun 06 - 07:55 PM SIx Nights Drunk The Eddystone Light Finnegan's Wake The Irish Rover Soldier, Oh, Soldier The Lock-Keeper's Lament A Very Unfortunate Man All side-splittingly funny in their day. A |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:44 PM King John & the Bishop (Child 45) --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Investing is not the same as gambling, and downtown is not the same as uptown. :|| |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Gerry Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:51 PM Nine Times a Night. Does searching the Digital Tradition for "keyword: Humor" work? |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Dave Hanson Date: 23 Jun 06 - 01:09 AM Killkelly Ireland, it brought a tear to my leg. eric |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Dave Hanson Date: 23 Jun 06 - 01:47 AM Yes I know it's not traditional. eric |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Bunnahabhain Date: 23 Jun 06 - 06:06 AM Well, one tham most women seem to find rather amusing is a french song 'Petit Homme' It's listed as traditional on the Eliza Carthy CD. Just why a woman complaining about her very small husband being no use for anything, and that she keeps losing him in bed could be funny is beyond me.... |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 23 Jun 06 - 07:54 AM Ahh, that reminds me of The Man Who Was So Small - though the verses (particularly some of the rhymes) sound as though they were consciously written rather than evolving out of an oral process. It's sung to the tune of a catchy Welsh hornpipe which I recognise but can't name, it's in the DT under "The Little Husband" and was recorded by John the Fish. The story is fun, if a bit wince-making, and it would certainly fit into all but the most sombre and strait-laced trad environments. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,HipflaskAndy Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:23 AM Farming Servant - I like that one (check out Carthy version on that Free Reed 4 CD set! marvellous) Coachman's Whip (Kennedy Book FS of GB & I) er, must stop coming up with the bawdy ones! Don't want a wrong impression! Cheers! |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,saulgoldie Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:56 AM "Travelling Man" as done by Dave Bromberg, also "Did You Ever Wake Up With Bullfrogs on your Eyes?" "White Collar Holler" by Stan Rogers, a work song for this era, although some of the tech references are now quite dated. (I have it transcribed, if anyone cares.) And "Whoopa, Whoopa, John" done by (I think) Lee Hays "Odd Man Out" by Lou and Peter Berryman is a RIOT, and lots more by them. Other'n WCH being in a trad style, these are all modern. I hope that is OK. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:26 AM Wait wait. A song of known authorship's not traditional? Usually not, I agree, but what about, say, Alfred Williams' 1907 "A Man Without a Woman" (Roll a Silver Dollar)? William S. Hays' "Curtains of Night" (I think), Tucker's "When This Cruel War Is Over," Dan Smith's "De Boatmen Dance," Samuel Lover's "Bold Sojer Boy," Keith's "Go 'Way Old Man," Tyte's "My Mary Anne?" All these have been collected in various places from impeccably traditional singers and communities. And then there's Ben Jonson's "Drink To Me Only," which has passed into tradition with three different tunes... (Not the best examples, I know, but it serves. I'm sure I could think of better ones if I wasn't in a rush. I'm just not sure "traditional" excludes known authors.) Bob |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Ned at work Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:40 AM Wait a minute! if a song had to have no known authorship to be traditional why do they need to write trad. anon? The General. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: thespionage Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:48 AM "Travelling Man" is a great song and the kind of song I looking for, but it was written by Pink Anderson. Russ |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:12 AM "Traveling Man," if it's the one I'm thinking of: Come and let me tell you 'bout a traveling man, His home was down in Tennessee... CHO He was a traveling man, God knows he was a traveling man, Travelin'est man ever was in this land... It goes way back before Anderson. Was recorded by both blacks and whites in the 1920s, including Prince Albert Hunt. Probably not traditional, but composed: an early (excuse the term) "coon song" whose origin, as far as I know, is untraced. Or is Anderson's a different song? Bob |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:14 AM General, Sir! If a song or tune is accredited to "Trad/Anon" and it's still in copyright, the composer or his/her heirs get no royalties. Nowadays you can PRS/MCPS-register your work who will try and recover what's due to you but many still slip through, as in the scores of Irish singers who claim something called Shores Of Erin (y'know, that one about sailing round the coast of Ireland) has been in their families for centuries and no. they've never heard of Ewan MacColl and Shoals of Herring). And then there are all those which musicians have researched from disuse and obscurity and arranged that chancers pick up, usually with inaccuracies, record and pass off as 'Trad' instead of 'Trad. Arr'. The (Monde)Black family is especially notorious for failing to acknowledge secondary sources and arrangers. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Briagha Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:23 AM Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man The Rattlin' Bog |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: michaelr Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:50 AM "if it has known authorship, it's not traditional" Oh really? And here I was thinking that Raglan Road, Down by the Sally Gardens, My Lagan Love, Boys of Barr na Sraide were considered traditional, even though their authors are known. Silly me. Cheers, Michael |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: The Borchester Echo Date: 23 Jun 06 - 11:59 AM silly me Indeed. None of the above are especially funny, though 'lovesick lennonshees' and 'beetles horns' sound as if they might be if we knew whatever they were. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Russ Date: 23 Jun 06 - 05:37 PM Tough crowd. De gustibus non disputandem est. Russ the perpetual GUEST |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Tannywheeler Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:17 PM Double check the attribution of White Collar Holler. Stan Rogers may have made the most well-known recording, but it was written by a friend of his, Nigel Russell. I became acquainted with Nigel some 15-20 years ago. He was living in the Austin, Texas area and used to sing at Austin Friends of Trad. Music open-mike sessions. He moved out to one of the "highland lakes" near Austin, built a boat, his wife had twin boys. Somewhere among all of that he formed an OT-Bg band with several folks and was playing around various places. Tw |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:34 PM Mention of French songs reminded me of "Chevaliers de la table ronde". --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Eager to please, and a nuisance. Easy to please, and a comfort. :|| |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Artful Codger Date: 23 Jun 06 - 09:47 PM Hey, let's not beef when someone suggests a song that fits the spirit of the request but not necessarily the precise criteria. Sheesh! "Traditional" tends to be used in several rather different senses. To debate its meaning in this thread is pointless, considering the subject has been rehashed to death so many times before. Real tradition has to do with usage and perception; there are no firm guidelines regarding attribution, copyright or age, which are at best ancillary considerations. So if you want to try to impose some strict definition based on such concepts, it's an artificial one not generally shared. Rest assured that if someone is interested to learn a song mentioned here, he is likely to search for threads specific to the song, where he will likely encounter all he needs to know about its proper attribution. Can we move on? |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Elmer Fudd Date: 24 Jun 06 - 03:03 AM How about "The Eddystone Light?" |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: captainbirdseye Date: 24 Jun 06 - 04:33 AM a Private Still,this is particuarly funny if sung by somebody who pronunces ther R s as W s,I remember a man called Orville singing it, i could never keep a straight face wnen he sang the words the Tipperary Ranks,up CORK. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Joe_F Date: 24 Jun 06 - 09:21 PM "Grim Grizzle" -- by Burns, but I dare say it has trad roots. A satire on the pretensions of authority 쳌à la Canute, but with no pretension of subtlety. The ending may fairly be called uproarious: Then she 's ta'en Hawkie [a cow] by the tail, And wrung wi' might and main, Till Hawkie rowted through the woods Wi' agonizing pain. `Sh--, sh--, ye bitch,' Grim Grizzel roar'd, Till hill and valley rang; `And sh--, ye bitch,' the echoes roar'd Lincluden [a church] wa's amang. Speaking of Burns, I see that "Holy Willie's Prayer" has not been mentioned. --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Men have two heads, but only enough blood to operate one at a time. :|| |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: GUEST,Thameside OttO Date: 25 Jun 06 - 05:29 AM How about "Me Husband's got no courage in him, oh dear oh" (or its equally famous (but not traditional, of course) parody "Me Husband's too much Courage in him . . . . " both sung very well in the County of Essex by a wonderful, all-girl harmony group called The Penny Huffers for many years. The Huffers also sang "An Old Man Came Courting Me", just as humourous. There's a song I do occasionally called "The Horseman" where the girl asks the horseman for the favour of what lies between his legs then when he dismounts, she jumps on his "bonnie little brown" and rides away with the last lines . . . "Don't make such a moan The mistake was your own For I sought nothing but your horse!" Another one I sing is the cumulative drinking song "he that makes one, makes two". Is it traditional? It's in Thomas d'Urfey's 18th century "Pills to Purge Melancholie", I believe. |
Subject: RE: Funny, Traditional Songs From: Bat Goddess Date: 25 Jun 06 - 02:09 PM There's traditional and then there's "in the tradition" -- nothing wrong in singing a good song written in the tradition, especially if you know and acknowledge that it's been written by a known person. Useful, too (shows you know what you're singing and care enough to learn the background of the song) as well as being true to the song itself -- which, in my opinion, is what singing this material is all about.. Just my two cents' worth. As far as other funny songs, how about "Fish and Tin and Copper" where another woman gets the best of the devil, and "Nine Times A Night" where, well, you know. Linn |
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