Song on a taboo subject?

Subject: Trad Ballads on taboo subjects?
From: Saro
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 10:45 AM

This is a serious enquiry, resulting from a very good question which was asked at a recent ballad forum at Lewes Arms. There are traditional ballads about all sorts of subjects which at some time in history might have been regarded as "taboo"   Ballads tell of incest, murder of the most gruesome kind, infanticide etc. However, we could not think of any ballads which deal with same sex relationships.

Does anyone know any? If so, what and where are they? If not, I'd be interested in any suggestions as to why there should be this gap...

Looking forward to some interesting discussion.

Saro

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:12 AM

"Zakhmi Dil", the Pathan War March, sung by British troops on one of the 19th century Afghan wars to these words:

There's a boy across the river
with a bottom like a peach
Alas I can not swim!

(thanx to Lewis Redstock's book for that).

The tune may be the original of "The Quartermaster's Store" - I've no idea what the Pushtu words are. The tune is now a standard in the military pipe repertoire.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:15 AM

Interesting question. Using "ballad" in the technical sense, there don't seem to be any that spring to mind. As regards folksongs, there are doubtless loads. But by the nature of the song collecting and publishing proicess, they probably got omitted from "Folksongs to be sung in schools" etc!

Subject: Lyr Add: FRIGGIN' IN THE RIGGIN'
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:16 AM

Friggin in the riggin,
Friggin in the riggin,
Friggin in the riggin,
There's nothing else to do.

Twas back in `69,
We left the Black Ball Line,
The crew did cry as we went by,
For we'd left our mates behind.

Twas back in `63,
When the captain he went to sea,
Born of a whore, was cast ashore,
A son of the beach was he.
A cook whose name was Davey,
Was cashiered from the Navy,
He dipped the bread inside the head,
And served it up as gravy.

The bosun's mate was Andy
A Portsmouth man and randy,
He used to cool his favorite tool
In a glass of the skipper's brandy.

The cabin boy was chipper,
A nasty little nipper.
He lined his ass with broken glass
And circumsised the skipper.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:22 AM

Wasn't there one about two women pirates? Not Bonney & Reade . I thought there was one about two women one of whom followed the other to sea?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:27 AM

The Handsome Cabin Boy

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:29 AM

I remember there are other threads on same sex relationships in folksong in general, rather than ballads. I won't post more till it's established whether we are just talking about ballads.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:38 AM

There are a few ballads that sort of hint around the edges of it, if you've a mind to read it that way:

"'Daughter, O daughter - daughter,' cried the king,
'Of guilt you may be free.
For if I were a woman, as I am a man,
My bedfellow he would be.'"

-Thomas of Winesbury


"Down on the ground she fell like one a-dying,
Tearing her arms abroad, sobbing and signing.
There's no believing men; not you're own brother -
So girls, if you must love, love one another."

- "The Captain Cried All Hands"

Dan

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,Kim C
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:42 AM

Except the handsome cabin boy was a GIRL and the captain knew it.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:48 AM

The Handsome Cabin Boy maybe as in she was bisexual or the captain raped her, yeah. I thought there was one more specifically lesbian.

I cannot remember what all came up in the other threads. Have to go take a look:

Historical gay/lesbian/bisexual songs and, there's some interestng related discussion in Lesbians, Gays and folk music.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:58 AM

Ah, found this old reference posted by Janice in NJ in one of the other threads. Not what I was thinking of, but still maybe fits the original category:

And in The Ball of Kerrymuir there are these lines:

Oh, the Ball, the Ball of Kerrymuir,
Where your wife and my wife were firkin on the floor.

Presumably they were firkin each other, although they simply could have been separately firkin other parties, male or female. The lesbian possibilities add to the humor.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Saro
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:22 PM

Greg, I was referring to traditional ballads, and British Ballads just to be more specific.
And yes, we discussed Willie Of Winesbury and Our Captain cried All Hands, and the Handsome Cabin Boy. There's nothing that I've come across that is really powerful like, for example, Sheath and Knife.

Dick Greenhaus suggests in another thread that
"I suspect that homosexuality disturbed our forebears more than things like rape, murder and incest did. "   Maybe that is the reason for the omission of this topic from ballds....

Any other ideas...
Saro

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:24 PM

Speaking of taboos, where are the songs about cannibalism?

~S~

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:37 PM

"A Cannibal Maid and Her Hottentot Blade"

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:40 PM

But obviously, homosexuality and cannibalism were topics that would not be sung in 'polite' company much, and were not the sort of thing you'd admit to knowing to a collector....and the few mentioned seem to be mostly comic - making fun of the activity.

Besides...who would you sing them TO?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 01:39 PM

This subject has certainly been celebrated in Ballad. If the material isn't generally known, it is probably because of either the discretion of, or the censorship of collectors. --check this siteHomosexuality in Eighteenth Century England--which contains a number of broadside ballads, including "Molly Exalted","A Woman's Complaint to Venus", and "The Game at Flats".

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 01:51 PM

Not a ballad, but my friend Pete has the opening of "the blues you don't really want to hear the rest of." It goes like this:


Oh, I've got a good woman,
But my man don't want her 'round.


Bob

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:09 PM

Can't think of any songs directly about same-sex relationships, but there are certainly traditional songs which hint at attraction between members of the same sex or more often than not, via that handiest of plot devices, members of the opposite sex dressed up.

Two examples that spring to mind are the Female Drummer, who's found out by a young girl who falls in love with her (the song doesn't state exactly how she finds out), and The Famous Flower of Serving Men, where the King is "beguiled" by his serving man (who of course is really a woman)

There's also Willie o' Winsbury, whose beauty gets him off the hook when Janet's father admits he'd be his bedfellow too (if he was a woman of course, which he's not)

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: oggie
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:14 PM

The Men They Couldn't Hang released "Come here little boy" some 10 or 15 years ago which dealt with child abuse and related issues. Not trad of course but a powerful song an a taboo subject and almost impossible to sing pretty well anywhere. I tried once and got told in no uncertain terms that it was "not appropriate and made the audience uncomfortable"

Steve

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:38 PM

Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but here's a broadside at the Bodleian A looking-glass for wanton Women - "By the Example and Expiation of Mary Higgs, who was executed on the 18th July, 1637 for commiting the odious sin of Buggery, with her Dog, who was hanged on a Tree the same day, neer the place of Execution; showing her penitent behavious and last speech", Tune of In Summertime.

Life was curious (and hazardous)!

Mick

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 04:12 PM

Way back when, Mudcatter "Murray" posted a bit about resources for bawdy ballads HERE when posting about the Ball of Kerrymuir, which Janice mentioned. (I realise it's got tons more verses which have nothing to do with possible lesbian affairs.)

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM

Any songs about bloody useless Labour governments?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,spb-cooperator
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 07:26 PM

Hi Wysiwyg

Re: Songs about cannibalism

The ship in distress (as opposed to the ship in disorder which is about blocked heads)
The Rhyme of the Nancy b (WS Gilbert)
The song with Little Boy Billy - I can't remember what it is called
The is anpther well known one... I'm wracking my brains to remember the title.


Ahoj

Steve

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 10:04 PM

There's the Australian "The Drover's Boy" about the relationship between a drover and his aborigine jin. Not same sex, but very much taboo at the time - heck, even now in some circles.

Not trad, but I am bringing out "Toni with an i" in Feb - a sympathetic look at a transgender case.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Rowan
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 11:26 PM

the Australian "The Drover's Boy" was written by Ted Egan, who is now Chief Administrator of the Northern Territory.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:24 AM

Homosexual acts were subject to the death penalty in England up to the early 19th century, and imprisonment thereafter up to the 1960s, so like MCP's excellent example above, the only place to look would be in 'last confessions'- no point in looking for a sympathetic treatment. Perhaps the woman in MCP's example was lucky she wasn't proceeded against as a witch- though the outcome would have been the same.

You don't (surprise?) get many sympathetic songs about paedophilia either- only murder ballads like Fanny Adams- though there is one song hanging on the edge of my memory that includes the line approximately "I know not what has come over me that I should love a child".

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:35 AM

Sarah, many thanks to you and Craig Morgan Robson for a superb ballad forum, vocal harmony workshop and evening performance at the Lewes Arms a couple of weeks ago!

The taboo relationships which appear in ballads are all ones which produce children, whose presence adds to the tragedy and could complicate inheritance if they survived.

I wonder if the absence of children from same-sex relationships is the main reason they don't feature in the tradition; this is only a surmise.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 04:17 AM

PMB was thinking of 'I am a Brisk Young Sailor' (Roud 1042). Quite rare -three versions, I think, in the Gardiner collection, all from Hampshire. I doubt if there is any paedophiliac subtext; 'child' in this context usually just means a girl -or woman- much younger than the person describing her (as in 'child bride', a common Victorian term).

Equally, the often cited examples of 'Our Captain Cried' and 'Willy of Winsbury' are really just commonplace ballad conventions and only appear sexually ambiguous in the light of what (I think) Sharp described as 'modern prurience'; it is pretty unlikely that your average traditional singer had any such thought in mind.

Much thought and many words have been expended on sexual ambiguity in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, where cross-dressing as a plot device, and the fact that all parts were played by men, provide plenty of opportunity for multiple levels of meaning; but that, really, is another matter; though there is also much useful discussion on the whole 'cross-dressing' business as it applies to popular song in Dianne Dugaw, Warrior Women and Popular Balladry 1650-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 1989).

There were certainly broadside songs that dealt with lesbianism, but there's no evidence, so far as I know, that any of these survived in tradition to become what would later be called 'folk songs'. That doesn't necessarily mean that none did; but it's pretty unlikely that any Edwardian singer who knew one and understood what it was about would have dreamed of singing it to a folk song collector (or any woman).

PMB has explained why male homosexuality doesn't really appear in folk song; I'd add that references to it certainly appeared on broadsides, but these were usually extremely hostile; and topical, apparently not surviving in tradition.

Modern composed songs are irrelevant to the question asked. Rugby and other specifically scatological songs are really the only places where you'll find references that might count as 'traditional', but these are invariably concerned with the physical act only, whether it be 'same sex', zoöphilic, or whatever. Relationships don't enter into it.

For relevant historical material, see in particular

http://www.immortalia.com/

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 04:23 AM

GUEST above was me. Bloody cookies!

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 04:41 AM

The term 'girl' usually referred to a virgin, rather than specifically a young female. Up until the 19th century, it was common for girls between 10 and 13 to be married (or at least bedded) in the country as well as in court.

The age of consent at 16 was brought in to protect young girls in brothels, but as I'm at work, I can't access the site that will verify that.

LTS

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 06:03 AM

Can't you just Google for "broth", to get through the filter?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 06:07 AM

Oddly enough, it's not 'brothel' that the office filter system has difficulties with, it's 'age of consent' that got it confused!

LTS

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Saro
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 06:14 AM

Thanks all! By the way, my husband sings The Brisk Young Sailor, and eventually altered the line to "love a creature not long since but a child". He sings for a lot of community groups, and felt that the potential for misunderstanding the line was too great to risk.
Saro

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:27 AM

In The Common Muse (Penguin Edition) I've found the following songs:

#182 The Four-Legged Elder or A Horrible Relation of a Dog and
    an Elder's Maid

#183 The Four-Legged Quaker (this time a foal)

#184 The Lusty Fryer of Flanders (who managed to get thirty nuns
    with child in the space of three weeks.) That's stamina!

#215 The Female Husband (Married to another female for 21 years)

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:52 AM

Shame, Saro, I think the line is clear enough, your husband shouldn't have to alter it. Just because some people are too lazy or downright thick to understand the meaning of a simple sentence, why should he have to dumb down his material?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: RTim
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:32 AM

At least in A Brisk Young Sailor - his does not marry the girl and goes off to sea for ever, where he has aready been for "40 years or more" - so when he says "If I was ten years older and she as old as me" - it would suggest? she is not a child?

I am singing with a choir here on Cape Cod early in the New Year, and one of the songs I suggested is Colin & Phoebe (again a Hampshire version), and I made the point to the organiser that I could change the line;
"With a virgen like me who is scarcely Sixteen"
by making it Eighteen or even Nineteen without it altering the song. However If I had suggested Brisk Young Sailor, I wouldn't have even though for a second I needed to make an adjustment.

To continue the theme (and with another Hampshire song) - You should ask Carolyn (of your own group CMR) how she feels about sing "Abroad as I was Walking" where in the 5th verse the subject of the song says:
"And now I am with child by you, Scarce Fourteen years of age"


Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 11:43 AM

If he's been at sea for 40 years or more, even if he started as a nipper, he ain't young!

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: mrmoe
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:06 PM

Carl Watanabe's "where the uplands roll"....a beautiful ballad about a botched abortion....


if you say my name where the uplands roll
and the answer you get ain't very kind
they'll be spoken by my hard friends of old
and my hard friends of old, I don't mind

I met a green eyed girl where the chaparral rolls
and grows high up to meet the yellow pine
her name and age best be unknown
it's enough just to say she once was mine

she was fair but her ways were much fairer yet
and her laughter could dance against the wind
her manner charmed everyone that she met
'til they held her as dear as next of kin

each young man placed his wealth and his soul in her hand
but none of them could be so proud
for she did choose a stranger to the land
and she came to me with her head bowed

our wedding day would come when the spring flowers bloomed
like two horses we danced into the sun
the stallion pranced and the mare would follow
before our wedding day a child would come

soldiers kill and we honor them with fortune and fame
but a baby who's harmed not one life
but is early to come is bathed full in shame
so must die unborn to a doctor's knife

as the doctor took our unborn babe
seeds of sorrow took root upon her mind
in her body the poison from his unwashed blade
left a wound who's cure we'd never find

so if you say my name where the uplands roll
and the answer you get ain't very kind
they'll be spoken by my hard friends of old
and my hard friends of old, I don't mind

but if they say not a word about me at all
but are reminded of a young girl once so fine
then listen close to the words that they recall
and they'll tell you of a girl who once was mine

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:40 PM

My uncle used to sing a traditional ballad titled "The Lady Who Loved a Swine", but her love was sadly unrequited. According to his notes:

Many references to this rhyme, and quotations of it in part or in full, appear in 17th century English literature. As a song it survives in the oral tradition in America.

It is a comic song with sad overtunes. I'd be happy to post the verses if anyone is seriously interested.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: RTim
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:58 PM

From: GUEST,PMB - PM
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 11:43 AM

"If he's been at sea for 40 years or more, even if he started as a nipper, he ain't young!"
=====
That was my point!
And I should also say I got the words wrong - of course it should have read:

"If I was ten years YOUNGER and she as old as me"


Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 03:43 PM

Nothing like ballads, but Handel's Italian cantatas (written largely for homosexual audiences, first in Rome and then in England) got a bit of attention a few years ago...

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HARHAN.html

The earliest ballad on a same-sex relationship is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,Lindsay in Wales
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 07:13 PM

Does the rugby song "All Queers Together" (sung to the tune of the Eton Boating Song) come into this category (by the way that was not an intended pun)

and is Tim Radford, further up the thread, the same one who was a Morris Dancer for Kirtlington/Duns Tew/Adderbury

20+ years ago I was a dancer/musician for Bucknell....

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:52 PM

So far not a serious challenger to the song my uncle used to sing.

Hah!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:07 PM

Well, actually there are several traditional songs that might be considered from the DT:

The Gay Caballero
Gay Spanish Maid
Lady Gay
Gay Gashawk
Enola Gay (may be a stretch)
A Bold Lover Gay
Come all You Garners Gay (whatever a garner might be)

And there's "The Lavender Cowboy" who "died with his sixgun a-blazing but only three hairs on his chest."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: RTim
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 10:31 PM

Yes - Lindsey in Wales, It's the same old Tim Radford, now living in Woods Hole Massachusetts.

Tim R
www.timradford.com

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 11:29 PM

The word 'gay' to indicate homosexual is such a recent usage, Charley, so pry your tongue out of your cheek and pass on your uncle's song, please! I can't be the only one interested. . .

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:52 AM

Well how about "My word, you do look queer"?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 05:14 AM

Fourteen years, Tim, not forty! The lines are:

For fourteen years and over I've ploughed the ocean wide

and

If I was but ten years younger and she as old as me

...which is ambiguous, but can perfectly well be taken as indicating that he is only ten years older than she is; which, assuming he started at sea at the age of (say) 13 or 14, would put him in his late 20s and her, arguably, in her late teens: and, from his point of view, still a child. In the other two known versions, David Marlow sang 'fifteen years and over', while William Garratt sang 'fifty years and over', but that was probably just a mistake for 'fifteen'. I don't yet know of a broadside version of this song, but I'd expect it to have appeared in cheap print during the 19th century. If something comes up it may clarify the original intent.

On another point, I hadn't realised that Carl Watanabe wrote traditional songs. He must be a lot older than Tim thought that sailor was, if his lyric is in any way relevant to the question 'Saro' asked. There is no shortage of modern songs on 'taboo' subjects.

There is a recording made by John and Ruby Lomax of 'There Was a Lady Loved a Swine', sung by Kate W Jones, Houston, Harris County, Texas, 10 April 1939, at The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. The words are in the DT as: The Lady that Loved a Swine. As it survives, it is a harmless nursery rhyme (and published as such in children's books), though it seems to have been just a little raunchier back in the 17th century. Did Charley's uncle have a pornographic version, by any chance?

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:24 AM

If I was but ten years younger and she as old as me isn't exactly saying that she's 10 years younger than him- there's that 'if'. She would have had to be seriously young for it to be disturbing in the early 19th century, for most of which the age of consent was 12.

Subject: RE: Song on a taboo subject?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:56 AM

'There is no shortage of modern songs on 'taboo' subjects.'


Maybe thats because we ask something different of folksongs nowadays. In those days people lived for the main part in isolated communities and the ballad was like an adventure film - showing and warning them of life's extraordinary possibilities - were they to break away from their relatively safe predictable lives. There be dragons!


Nowadays we look to folksong as a confirmation of our identities and common humanity, because we live in large amorphous anomic societies.