Origins: Gently Johnny My Jingalo

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: GENTLY JOHNNY MY JINGALO
From: GUEST,jim clark london england.
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 06:18 AM

Can anybody point me in the direction of an online sound version of this lovely song which I first heard in "The Wicker Man" movie so far i've listened to some very boring midi's and a small snippet,but I'd love to hear lots of different versions if there are any available online

Heres a version of the lyrics and chords from the net just to remind you all..

Gently, Johnny, My Jingalo


(Traditional English Folk Tune)

          Gm7               C                  Dm          Gm7
I put my hand all in her hair, and she says, "I like it there"

          Gm7               C                  Dm          Gm7
I put my hand all to her lips, and she says, "Please tell me this"

         Gm7               C            Dm       Gm7

Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my jingalo,
         
         Gm7             C             Dm       Gm7
Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my love

I put my hand all on her knee, and she says, "Do you want to see?"
I put my hand all on her breast, and she says, "Do you want a kiss?"

Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my jingalo,
Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my love

I put my hand all on her thigh, and she says, "do you want to try?"
I put my hand all on her belly, and she says, "do you want to fill me?"

Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my jingalo,
Gently gently, gently Johnny, gently Johnny my love

Alternatively could any of you record me a version and email the sound file to....my music email address of

[e-mail]

Regards.

Jim Clark
listen online to sound poems & acoustic music

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny song
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 09:45 AM

It's in our database. Also, put gently johnny in the white search box...several threads discussing it.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny song
From: GUEST,jim clark london england.
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 11:02 AM

Thanx Sorch

Jim

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny song
From: Peg
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 02:31 PM

I think the band I sing in occasionally (Green Crown) has a recorded version somewhere on line. But if not, we will probably do one soon.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny song
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 02:54 PM

See thread 45593 for more information: I Put My Hand

Subject: Free Mp3 : Gently Johnny & Song 32
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 11:55 AM

A month or so back, during the Folk: Image & Presentation thread, Don Firth pointed out that the chilling soliloquy intoned by Lord Summerisle over Paul Giovanni's surreal reconstruction of Gently Johnny in The Wicker Man comes from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Thus inspired, I sought out the relevant passage (Part 32 of Song of Myself) and knocked together a demo in which a suitably canted rendering is bookended by two versions of Gently Johnny, one in its original bawdy form, the other as cleaned up by Cecil Sharp, and both sung to the traditional (Northumbrian?) melody. Needless to say it is Cecil's expurgated version that is the most effectively erotic of the two...

For the next week, this can be had gratis by clicking here: Gently Johnny & Song 32. By no means perfect, I feel it's just about passable as a floorspot in a virtual singaround; an entirely live take, in real time, just voice, Citera Beta and Shruti Box...

Sedayne / aka Insane Beard

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: GUEST,Johnny Gently
Date: 09 Jul 08 - 03:18 PM

Slightly over-long, perhaps a little self-indulgent, with definite touches of genius, and as the bewildered MC would undoubtedly say - follow that!

Oh, checked that thread link, Sedayne - and guess what the pub in The Wicker Man is called?

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 05:25 AM

Thanks for that, Johnny. Otherwise - there is confusion with the pub name & the Eccliastical Foliate Heads (to give Green Men their proper title!), a confusion further compounded by the fact that in relatively recent years almost all pubs called The Green Man use a foliate head on their sign, rather than the more traditional image of Robin Hood, or some such. Whether this is a case of folklore reinventing itself, or of a more genuine folk process I can't say, but it doesn't help in clarifying the nature and purpose of the Ecclesiastical Foliate Heads which were first called Green Men by Lady Raglan as recently as 1939!

There has always been folkloric interest in The Green Man as a pub name, as with other pub names, and it's obvious the researchers of The Wicker Man dug deep for their material, but even so this could well be one of the earliest instances of a Green Man of any description in a neo-pagan (as oppose to a folkloric) context, no matter how put on that context might have been. As has already been noted, the influence of the film upon neo-paganism is not inconsiderable.

The study of folklore is not the study of paganism, even though many pagans would assume this to be the case!

Sedayne.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 02:31 PM

Hi "Beard",

Loved it. One of my favourite "Granny's Bay" moments. Thanks for the CD.

"Spleen"

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 02:34 PM

Don't know about the film's influences. Re its researchers digging deep. They appear to have dug deep into a lot of very different pots from a wide variety of 'cultures'.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 03:28 PM

Cheers Spleen - & my own cringing apologies for the 'bago remark; it was, of course, a carefully codified piece of poodle-play referencing the immediate predecessor to Bongo Fury - see here.

Steve - it seems the researchers dug deep enough to provide a blue-print for a lot of the wyrdish neo-pagan folkery that continues to beguile even the most cynical of listeners (myself included, hail John Barleycorn!), as well as giving The Green Man his debut in such a context, however so obscure.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Jul 08 - 03:37 PM

Beard,
It seems odd calling someone else 'Beard'! I've been known exclusively as 'Mr Beard' by my son's ex-girlfriend, who we dearly love, for many years now.

If what you say about these neo-pagans and the film is true they would make a wonderful PhD study for someone. And now you're going to tell me it's already been done.

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 08 - 04:31 AM

Neo paganism was well on the go before The Wicker Man - although that film did give a bit of impetus to those who couldn't be a*sed to read "The Golden Bough" and/or "The White Goddess". ;-)

Subject: RE: Gently Johnny
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 Jul 08 - 04:57 AM

These things need a catalyst, something certainly as convincingly moist as The Wicker Man which seeps its sticky mess in such a way as to be almost convincing. Also, it doesn't ask a lot of you either, unlike The Golden Bough upon which a lot of such pagan / folkloric thinking is based. Even so, there are no Green Men in Golden Bough (he says, waiting to be told otherwise!). I have a greater affection for The White Goddess, which is altogether less didactic. Times it my life I found it both a comfort and an inspiration; it has also furnished me with at least two great songs - The Allansford Pursuit & The Woodcutter's Song, both of which occur as footnotes, the former being written by Graves himself, based on one of the shape-shifting incantations of Isobel Gowdie, and often finding itself in an is-it-traditional? crisis, along with Kipling's A Tree Song etc.

Worthy of a PhD? Maybe so, but I'd like an examination of the whole pagan / magic / fascist thing anyway, being dismayed by the persistence of the Frazerian notion of folklore unwittingly perpetuating paganism, which is not only absolute bollocks, but evidence of a darker mindset which always assumes a hidden, or codified, meaning of such things, an approach which certainly comes out in The Wicker Man.

As for One Size Fits All, the Zappa album immediately before Bongo Fury, made earlier that same year in fact, it too features Beefheart, on harmonica, albeit pseudonymously as Bloodshot Rollin' Red. He's right there in the classic San Ber'dino.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the Gently Johnny & Song 32 mp3 is still up there, just click Here to download.

Subject: RE: Origins: Gently Johnny My Jingalo
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Feb 20 - 04:26 PM

Here is the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:

Gently, Johnny, My Jingalo

DESCRIPTION: The speaker successively places his hands on various portions of his love's anatomy, all of them respectable. She tells him, "Come to me, quietly, do not do me injury/Gently, Johnny, my jingalo". They marry.
AUTHOR: To all intents and purposes, Cecil Sharp
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage sex derivative
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
GreigDuncan7 1412, "Johnny Jiggamy" (2 texts, 3 tunes)
Sharp-100E 65, "Gently, Johnny, My Jingalo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves-Sharp 34, "Gently Johnny My Jingalo" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 158, "Gently Johnny, My Jingalo" (1 text)
DT, JJINGLO*
Roud #5586
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A-Rovin'" (plot, theme)
cf. "Yo Ho, Yo Ho" (theme, floating lyrics)
cf. "Tickle My Toe" (theme)
NOTES [125 words]: [Sharp writes,] "The words were rather coarse, but I have, I think, managed to re-write the first and third lines of each verse without sacrificing the character of the original song." The second and fourth lines constitute a refrain, of course. With this in mind, I call this essentially a new song, written by CJS. Otherwise, it could well be listed under "A-Rovin'." -PJS
Ed Cray, following Reeves, notes that "Gently" was rewritten from "Yo Ho, Yo Ho," which follows the exact form of "A-Rovin'" although with even more explicit lyrics. Roud lumps the result with "Yo Ho." I say the amount of rewriting is so great to make them separate songs.
It is fascinating to find GreigDuncan having something similar before Sharp did his bowdlerizing. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.6
File: ShH65

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And the lyrics from the Digital Tradition:

GENTLY JOHNNY MY JINGALO (DT)

I put my hand all in her own
Fair maid is a lily oh
She said, "If you love me alone
Come to me quietly
Do me no injury
Gently, Johnny, my Jingalo"

I said, "You know I love you, dear"
Fair...
She whispered softly in my ear
Come...

I placed my arm around her waist
She laughed and turned away her face

I kissed her lips like roses red
She blushed, then tenderly she said
I slipped a ring all in her hand
She said, "The parson's near at hand"

I took her to the church next day
The birds did sing and she did say

See also AROVIN
@courtship
rewritten by Cecil Sharp, who objected to the original anatomical
progression. Printed in Cole
filename[ JJINGLO
TUNE FILE: JJINGLO
CLICK TO PLAY
SOF

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The Digital Tradition lyrics are almost exactly what's printed in Cecil Sharp's 1916 One Hundred English Folksongs (pages 146-147 in the 1975 Dover edition). Here's my slightly corrected transcription from the Dover edition.

GENTLY JOHNNY MY JINGALO

I put my hand all in her own,
Fair maid is a lily, O!
She said: If you love me alone
Come to me quietly,
Do me no injury;
Gently, Johnny, my Jingalo.

I said: You know I love you, dear,
Fair maid...
She whisper'd softly in my ear:
Come to me quietly...

I placed my arm around her waist....
She laugh'd and turn'd away her face....

I kiss'd her lips like roses red....
She blush'd, then tenderly she said: ....

I slipp'd a ring all in her hand....
She said: The parson's near at hand....

I took her to the church next day....
The birds did sing and she did say: ....

Subject: ADD Version: Gently Johnny My Jingalo
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Feb 20 - 04:38 PM

The version above from our Digital Tradition Folk Song Database is from Sharp, but these are the lyrics actually collected by Sharp.

GENTLY JOHNNY MY JINGALO

I put my hand all on her toe
    Fair maid is a lily O
I put my hand all on her toe
She says to me do you want to go?
    Come to me quietly
    Do not do no injury
    Gently Johnny my jingalo.

I put my hand all on her knee
She says to me do you want to see?

I put my hand all on her thigh
She says to me do you want to try?

I put my hand all on her billy
She says to me do you want to fill'ee?

I put my hand all on her breast
She says to me do you want a kiss?

I put my hand all on her head
She says you want my maidenhead.


[1176 William Tucker at Ashcott 1907. One other fragmentary version]

Sharp printed an entirely re-written text of this song, appending the following note (Folk Songs from Somerset, 1904—9): 'I know nothing of this song. I have never heard anyone sing it except Mr Tucker; nor do I know of any broadside or any published folk-song with which it has any connection. Mr Tucker told me that he learned the song from his father, who always declared it to be his favourite song.
'The words as I took them down were too coarse for publication. I have, however, been able to re-write the first and third lines of every verse without, I think, wholly sacrificing the character of the original song. The lines that recur in each verse run very smoothly and prettily and seem to suggest that the song is of some antiquity.'
He reprinted this text in English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, Vol I (5925) with a similar note, adding: 'I have no doubt but that it is a genuine folk-song.'
I have discovered no other printed text. A. G. Gilchrist (Journal of the Folk— Song Society, No. 20, 1916), suggests that the refrain is a corruption of 'Gentil joli jongleur', and refers to the refrain of a medieval lyric in Early English Lyrics, No. CL (Chambers & Sidgwick):

Draw me nere, draw me nere
Draw me nere, ye jolly juggelere!

She adds that the song 'appears to be a relic of an old minstrel song'.
In the middle ages jugglers were notorious for promiscuity and craftiness. Cf. Chaucer, Friar's Tale, I. 1467:

A lousy jogelour can deceyve thee.

Source: The Idiom of the People, by James Reeves ©1958 (page 115 of 1965 Norton Library Edition)

Subject: RE: Origins: Gently Johnny My Jingalo
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 08 Feb 20 - 07:08 PM

Many of performances of the song on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Gently+Johnny%2C+My+Jingalo