Lyr Req: The Drunken Sailor (Cyril Tawney)

Subject: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 03:34 PM

No, it's not "What shall we do...",
but a Cyril Tawney song included as an untitled bonus track on the CD "Navy Cuts". I'm fairly sure after a bit of googling that the title is "The drunken sailor". I'd be very thankful if someone could post the lyrics.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: GUEST,effsee, not at home
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 06:47 PM

If memory serves, the only bonus track on Navy Cuts is "Re-union". I s this the track you mean Wolfgang? If so I can probably transcribe it tomorrow if nobody else does before then..."Sorrow is my stock in trade, sadness is my style"...is that the one you mean?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: gnomad
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 07:47 PM

There are 14 tracks listed, but 16 on the disc. One of the extras is as mentioned by guest effsee. The other is about a drunken sailor, though I don't know whether or not that is the actual title. I have it listed as "In the doorway", but being unsure where I got that title from, I am also unsure whether that helps or just confuses matters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: GEST
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 07:59 PM

Zany Mouse posted the lyrics here in the Mudcat on 19 June, 2007. See http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=102577 :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 12:45 AM

There is a track on the album 'Sally Free And Easy' entitled 'The Drunken Sailor'.
It begins

Behold the animated sack
Bloodstained cap stuck flat aback
A creature draped in the garb of Jack
A-swaying in the doorway



Could this be what you are looking for?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 07:15 AM

There are two untitled bonus tracks on my Navy Cuts CD. One is "Reunion" that has been posted recently under the first-line title "Sorrow is my stock of trade" (GEST's link).

The second is the one I'm looking for and it is the one Sky Sailor has started to post.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 07:18 AM

Hello Wolfgang
If nobody beats me to it, I will finish the transcription this evening.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DRUNKEN SAILOR (C. Tawney)
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 09:48 AM

THE DRUNKEN SAILOR
Cyril Tawney

Behold the animated sack
With a mudstained cap stuck flat aback
A creature draped in the garb of Jack
A-swaying in the doorway

Observe the vomit-laden shoes
The legacy of lavish booze
A mixture of assorted stews
Displaying in the doorway

And note the glassy eyes that peer
In vain pursuit of image clear
The whole assembly far and near
Surveying from the doorway

Perceive the fingers, bloodless white
That clutch the varnished woodwork tight
Without their aid their owner might
Be laying in the doorway

But see, with valour born of drink
Security is thrown at stake
As comes, at last, the grave mistake
Of straying from the doorway

Watch now, the big be-gatored four
Are, from his resting place, the floor,
The guardian of our island's shore,
Conveying through the doorway

They'll take him to the cabin plain
With a padlocked door, but all in vain
Next payday he'll appear again
A-swaying in the doorway



Regards
Derek (Sky sailor)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 10:02 AM

Many thanks, Derek.

Reading the lyrics now I realise why I had to give up the attempt at transcription.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 10:14 AM

You are welcome, Wolfgang
I had a bit of a problem working out the punctuation in the penultimete verse, to make it make sense.
Regards
Derek

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 10:59 AM

I have a hunch that "be-gaitered" is probably closer to correct than "be-gatored" in the penultimate verse. I can't make any sense out of "be-gatored", but I've heard of a kind of footwear called "gaiters", and "be-gaitered" would make if the military police wear that kind of footwear.

Does anyone know whether or not that's the case?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Effsee
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 11:14 AM

Yes Guest, that is the right way of it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Sky Sailor
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 11:25 AM

Yes, I must have had a mental abberation!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 01:52 PM

Aahhhh!! Gaiters wez them bits of canvas wi' straps what went aroond the ankles te keep the troosers from flappin' aboot

In past times the' wez 'puyyees' which were strips of (khaki) cloth which did the same thing but in wartime could be used as bandages an' aall.

If yez watch any parade of the armed forces ye'll see them (normally white for serious parades) in abundance.

The 'Crushers' - naval police - wore them as a matter of course on patrol - hence the 'be-gaitored four' - The crushers never worked in less than two's because one would be the writer and one would be the reader - The' wez never clever enough te dee both!

Their 'arrest caution' was "Anything you say will be taken down in pencil and may be altered later"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The drunken sailor (C. Tawney)
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 01:53 PM

Sorry - Them strips of cloth wez 'puttees' - Damned bad-spellin' laptop!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Drunken Sailor (Cyril Tawney)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 11:12 AM

Thanks to all the correspondents with regard to finding the names for the extra tracks on 'Navy Cuts' I searched high and low on Google for the info and this was the only site that seemed to know anything about them. Many thanks. I may have to sign up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Drunken Sailor (Cyril Tawney)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 12:04 PM

I searched high and low on Google for the info and this was the only site that seemed to know anything about them.

And you aren't the first to find that to be true. Come on in and join the party.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Drunken Sailor (Cyril Tawney)
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Aug 08 - 10:45 PM

"Reunion", in contrast, is about a *formerly* drunken sailor. It is not funny at all. It makes me think how terribly lucky I am not to be an addict.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Drunken Sailor (Cyril Tawney)
From: MuddleC
Date: 04 Aug 08 - 06:00 PM

I never did enjoy 'run ashore's' like that.. and anyway, we had to be in 'civi's'..the Navy and other services stopped wearing uniform ashore during 'the trubbles'