Origins: Johnny Todd

Subject: Shanty: Johnny Todd
From:
Date: 26 Mar 97 - 05:57 PM

I'm looking for a wav or au file for the tune to the shanty Johnny Todd. This was used as the theme tune to the BBC TV series "Z Cars" in the UK in the 1960's.

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Mar 97 - 09:09 PM

Hi Stephen, I don't know about the wav or au files, but if you're looking for a tune you might try this. G/C/G/Em/Am/D7/G/C/D7/G/D7/G, I hope that helps. Jonny Todd would be considered a Forebitter or a Folks'l song instead of a sea shanty which would've been used while woking, with crew singing back a chours to the shantyman.

Subject: Lyr Add: Johnny Todd
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:24 PM

There are two versions in the DT database - JOHNNY TODD and JOLLY SAILOR. Joe Offer also posted an Irish version in this thread Irish Kid's Songs. All use the same tune.

The version I've been singing for over 30 years has an extra bar in the third line, which also starts with ascending rather than descending thirds. The words also differ slightly to fit the tune.
It's so long ago that I can't say where I got either words or tune, but it was probably in a folk club rather than from a record, and I have probably folk-processed the words in the intervening years. I have since found the tune given (in the key of F) in a First Step instructional book How to play the Flageolet (penny whistle) by E H Wickham.

JOHNNY TODD

Johnny Todd, he took a notion
For to cross the ocean wide
And he left his true love behind him
Weeping on the Liverpool tide

For a week she wept for Johnny
Tore her hair and wrung her hands
Till she met with another sailor
Walking on the Liverpool sands

Say, fair maid, why are you weeping
For your Johnny gone to sea
If you come to the church tomorrow
I will kind and constant be

I will buy you sheets and blankets
You shall have a wedding ring
You shall ha-ave a silver cradle
For to rock your baby in

Johnny Todd came home from sailing
Back across the ocean wide
And he found that his fair but false one
Was another sailor's bride

So all young men who long like Johnny
'Cross the ocean for to go
Never leave your true love behind you
Marry her before you go

MIDI file: JOHNTOD2.MID

Timebase: 480

Tempo: 160 (375000 microsec/crotchet)
Key: D
TimeSig: 2/4 24 8
Name: Johnny Todd 1
Text: S:from Memory - mid '60s
Start
0000 1 62 127 0479 0 62 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 69 127 0719 0 69 000 0001 1 69 090 0239 0 69 000 0001 1 71 127 0479 0 71 000 0001 1 71 090 0479 0 71 000 0001 1 69 127 0479 0 69 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 62 127 0479 0 62 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 69 127 0719 0 69 000 0001 1 69 090 0239 0 69 000 0001 1 67 127 0479 0 67 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 64 127 0959 0 64 000 0001 1 62 127 0479 0 62 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 69 127 0959 0 69 000 0001 1 62 127 0719 0 62 000 0001 1 66 090 0239 0 66 000 0001 1 64 127 0479 0 64 000 0001 1 62 090 0479 0 62 000 0001 1 61 127 0479 0 61 000 0001 1 57 090 0479 0 57 000 0001 1 62 127 0479 0 62 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 69 127 0719 0 69 000 0001 1 64 090 0239 0 64 000 0001 1 67 127 0479 0 67 000 0001 1 66 090 0479 0 66 000 0001 1 62 127 0959 0 62 000
End

ABC format:

X: 70
T:Johnny Todd
M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:160
S:from Memory - mid '60s
K:D
D2 F2|A3 A|B2 B2|A2 F2|
D2 F2|A3 A|G2 F2|E4 |
D2 F2|A4 |D3 F|E2 D2|C2 A,2|
D2 F2|A3 E|G2 F2|D4 ||



WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:28 PM

That should be JOLLY OLD SAILOR

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Gareth
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:00 PM

Hemmm ! which Version of the "Z - Cars ! theme, the original 1960's or the revamped !970's version.

Aaaah! Come back Stratford John, aka "Barlow".

Gareth

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Dead Horse
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:30 PM

Whatever happened to the fat one? Bet he never made it as a serious actor ;-}

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:52 PM

Gordon Bok did a nice version of "Johnny Todd" on his first album--years ago. It was on Verve/Forecast (later called Verve/Folkways).

I used the tune of "Johnny Todd" for my broken-token ballad parody that I called "That's The Ticket.

Art Thieme

Subject: Lyr Add: JOHNNY TODD
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 May 02 - 09:25 PM

"Johnny Todd" is in Frank Kidson's Traditional Tunes: A Collection of Ballad Airs (1891; reprinted S.R. Publishers, 1970, pp. 103-104; with music).

JOHNNY TODD

("JOHNNY TODD is a child's rhyme and game, heard and seen played by Liverpool children. The air is somewhat pleasing, and the words appear old, though some blanks caused by the reciter's memory had to be filled up."--Kidson)

Johnny Todd he took a notion
For to go across the sea,
And he left his love behind him,
Weeping by the Liverpool sea.
For a week she wept full sorely,
Tore her hair and wrung her hands,
Till she met another sailor
Walking by the Liverpool sands.

"Why, fair young maid, are you a-weeping,
For your Johnny gone to sea?
If you'll wed with me to-morrow,
I will kind and constant be.

"I will buy you sheets and blankets,
I'll buy you a wedding ring,
You shall have a gilded cradle
For to rock your baby in."

Johnny Todd came back from sailing,
Sailing o'er the ocean wide;
But he found his fair and false one,
Was another sailor's bride.

All young men who go a-sailing,
For to fight the foreign foe,
Don't leave your own love like Johnny--
Marry her before you go.

The "Z Cars" theme tune is based on this. For wav. & mp3, CLICK HERE; the lyrics given at the site are not those in the Kidson book quoted above.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 May 02 - 09:28 PM

CLICK HERE.

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 May 02 - 01:27 AM

For background information, see Opie, The Singing Game (Oxford, 1985, pp. 137-140), under the title "Johnny the Sailor Boy".

"Frank Kidson was not to know that five years earlier an American anthropologist had come across children in Washington DC playing a ring game that, at the least, confirmed his claim that the song was not new:

Charlie took a notion
To go sail the sea,
And left poor Minnie a widow
Under the willow-tree.
Minnie, Minnie, nurse your baby;
Drink the wine that Charlie's sent you.

"The tune 'Johnnie Todd' was arranged by Bridget Fry and Fritz Spiegl, and became familiar to every home in Britain in the 1960s as the signature tune of the BBC television series Z Cars which is set in Liverpool." (Opie, pp. 138-39)

I haven't found a sea shanty version.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: DIG FOR SILVER
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:59 AM

Three versions in Alice Bertha Giomme's The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, vol. 2 (1898; Dover, 1964, pp. 414-5, 428-9).

DIG FOR SILVER

Dig for silver, dig for gold,
Dig for the land that I was told.
As I went down by the water side
I met my lad with a tartan plaid.
My wee lad is a jolly sailor,
And shall be for evermore.
(Name of boy) took the notion
To go and sail on the ocean.
He took poor (name of girl) on his knee,
And sailed across Kilmarnock sea.
Stop your weeping, my dear --,
He'll come back and marry you.
He will buy you beads and earrings,
He will buy you a diamond stone,
He will buy a horse to ride on,
When your true love is dead and gone.
What care I for the beads and earrings,
What care I for the horse to ride on,
When my true love is dead and gone.
--Laureston School, Kircudbrightshire (L. Lawson)

Billy Johnson took a notion
For to go and sail the sea;
He has left his own true love
Weeping on the Greenock quay.
I will buy you beads and earrings,
I will buy you diamonds three,
I will buy you beads and earrings,
Bonny lassie, if you marry me.
What care I for beads and earrings,
What care for diamonds three,
What care I for beads and earrings,
When my own trie love is far from me.
--Perth (Rev. Dr. Gregor)

HEAR ALL! LET ME AT HER

Hear all! let me at her;
Hear all! let me go;
Hear all! let me at her,
When my mammy will or no.

-- has ta'en a notion
For to go and sail the sea;
There he's left his own dear --,
Weeping on the Greenland sea.

Hold your tongue, my own dear --,
Take your baby on your knee.
Drink his health, my jolly sailors,
I'll come back and marry thee.

I will buy thee beads and ear-rings,
I will buy thee diamnds stones,
I will buy thee silken ribbons,
When thy baby's dead and gone.

-- says she'll wear the ribbons,
-- says she'll wear them a'--
-- says she'll wear the ribbons
When her baby's dead and gone.
["A ring is formed, one palyer in the centre. When the verses are sung the girl in the middle chooses another to take her palce.--(Rev. Dr. Gregor.)"--Gomme]

~Masato

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 May 02 - 12:07 PM

Should have been "Alice Bertha Gomme".
The Traditional Ballad Index (Click here) says "EARLIEST DATE: 1950s (recording, Bob Roberts)", which should be corrected.

Subject: RE: Shanty:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 May 02 - 04:49 PM

-------That's The Ticket
TUNE: JOHNNY TODD
by A.T.

Nancy, a cute girl, is the owner of a shoe repair shop. (Thieme---line one--verse one)

Willie brings his boots for repairs. (Thieme---line 2---verse one)

Heels and soles need major overhauls...polishing is added as an afterthought.(verse two)

Wllie reveals he's leaving on a seven year voyage. Asks what token of their ongoing pelvic affiliation they might split. (verse three)

She rips the claim ticket in half and gives him his portion of ticket #8049. (verse four)

He leaves and decides to return when his boots are again worn---seven years later. (Thieme---verse five)

He walks into the shop and Nancy fails to recognize him as he has passed through puberty and can now grow a beard. (Thieme--verse # six)

She tells him they can get married but to come back on Thursday because his shoes have not been repaired yet. (Thieme---verse seven)

song ends (Thieme---verse eight)

Subject: RE: Shanty: JOHNNY TODD
From: GUEST,www.drijfhout-vlieland.nl
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 06:48 AM

sung by the dutch folkgroup drijfhout from the island of vlieland it changed a litlle!?

Subject: RE: Shanty: JOHNNY TODD
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 09:14 AM

PEDANT ALERT !

Johnny Todd is NOT a Shanty ! A Shanty is a WORK song for hauling , pumping or what ever . Johnny Todd is a Forebitter , a song the hands would sing for recreation .

Subject: RE: Shanty: JOHNNY TODD
From: MartinRyan
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 09:22 AM

GUEST

Tell us about the Dutch version? I've been on Terschelling and on Texel (which doesn't count, I know!) but never made Vlieland.

Regards

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,Guest2
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 06:32 PM

hello,
the version sang on Vlieland is on a CD "Gestrand op Vlieland" By a Group Drijfhout. On Vlieland a lot of groups are singing traditional songs. from the island but also english songs. groups from all over the world come to to this island becouse of the traditional music.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 02:42 AM

Thank you!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 09:00 PM

I was best friends with Isla Cameron, in the London of 1952. She sang, "Johnny Todd" often when we had singing gatherings(and party food if anyone had spare food stamps). Eventually she sang it into our tape recorder microphone, so I have it somewhere still. It's a sweet, lively song, and Isla was, also. Would she were still with us. I believe it was also included in a children's songbook of mine, From Fair to Fair. (Oxford U. Press; now the U. Press of Kentucky).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,JosMorn
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 06:01 PM

Amen, Leadfingers.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 06:47 PM

"...humming to himself the chorus of a song that used to be popular on the gabbarts, but is now gone out of date, like 'The Captain with the Whiskers Took a Sly Glance at Me'. You may have heard it thirty years ago, before the steam puffer came in to sweep the sailing smack from all the seas that lie between Bowling and Stornoway. It runs:

Young Munroe he took a notion
For to sail across the sea,
And he left his true love weeping,
All alone on Greenock Quay."

From 'Para Handy, Master Mariner' by Neil Nunroe in 1906.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 10:03 AM

Anyone trace this old sea song back any further than the 1890s?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 01:29 PM

Yes Kytrad, Isla Cameron was indeed superb but virtually forgotten today. I saw her years and years ago at the Spinners' Folk Club in Liverpool; here was the best! I have an airshot of her singing John Anderson, My Jo (bawdy version & on BBC too) but nothing else. Does anyone know if any recordings are available?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: mayomick
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 05:59 PM

Z Car's scriptwriter was Alan Prior - Maddy Prior's dad .

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,pizel
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 05:52 PM

Paul Burke 3.6.11 makes mention of Neil Munroe.
Munroe in a 1907 book gives us an insight into the sheepskin drum played in Scotland, this was called in Scotland a Dallan and it is the same as the Irish drum.
Does anyone know the date when the Irish version first gets a mention in print?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Paul Burke
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 08:12 PM

pizel:

That deserves a thread of its own. No one will notice it here.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 11:15 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 May 16 - 04:41 AM

Farmers Set http://open.spotify.com/track/2C3xMh6zlS0HTjoFrscPTZ


GUEST,Doc John - 
Date: 19 Jan 12

It is on this album
Isla Cameron - Through Bushes and Briars


https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B002TG4D8S/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new 



http://open.spotify.com/album/2yDG2RPNmesM6Wg95TvOFg

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: banjoman
Date: 26 May 16 - 04:52 AM

Played at every home game at Goodison Park (Everton FC)when the players make their entrance.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: MikeL2
Date: 26 May 16 - 06:45 AM

Hi

<" Played at every home game at Goodison Park (Everton FC)when the players make their entrance.">

After their home form this year maybe it's time for a change.

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 26 May 16 - 01:32 PM

Related thread: (but not showing above)
Johnny Todd & football : mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=159408

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 11:42 PM

Refresh - more research needed

Nice information in Mainly Norfolk

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Apr 20 - 03:28 AM

Johnny Todd isn't/wasn't a shanty - it may have been a folks'l song once (subg for leisure, but the version thatt survives in Liverpool children's song, maybe once connected to a street game

The Critics, ans other singing workshops adopted it as a singing exercise, particularly useful for getting new singers used to singing tunes accurately
It is an excelent exercise for 'unfoursquaring' (many new singers tend to break up words into syllables and not rune lines together, when the sense of the narrative suggests otherwise
A 'simple' song like Johnny Todd is ideal for experimenting on
I't's simplicity and child origins makes it unlikely to be 'spoiled' for serious performance
Z-Cars (filmed in my home town of Kirkby) made it hackneyed enough to have been killed off as a serious song long before The Critics Group was a twinkle in Ewan's eye
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: GUEST,Ann Hinchliffe
Date: 26 Sep 20 - 07:53 PM

Can anyone help with the original tune? I learnt it growing up on Merseyside -- from BBC Singing Together I think, very trad! -- with five bars in the third line not four. This fits the words given better than a standard four bars. I have a thing about how often irregular rhythms are tidied up which to my mind spoils their idiosyncrasy: why should everything be neat? let's relish the historically offbeat. I've found lots of refs to F Kidson which give 19thC lyrics, no tune. Would like to know how many bars originally. BTW, is this what you're referring to, Jim Carroll, as an exercise in accurate singing?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Anglo
Date: 27 Sep 20 - 04:00 PM

Anyone know who wrote the parody, which starts:

Johnny Todd he stole a Z ["zed"] car
Just to give his bird a ride,
By another was overtaken,
Johnny Todd was soon inside.

???

As far as the music is concerned, it seems to be debatable whether "John-ny" starts the bar, or whether it's a pickup.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 20 - 04:09 PM

jim, is unfortunately no longer with us

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Sep 20 - 08:12 AM

Guest Ann Hinchliffe asks for the Singing Together version.
That's my cue I think. This is the version (with time change) from Singing Together which appeared in Autumn 1968 & Spring 1980
The words differ slightly from those already in the DT

JOHNNY TODD
Trad (English)

Johnny Todd, he took a notion
For to sail the ocean wide
And he left his true love behind him
Weeping by the Liverpool tide

For a week, she wept full sorely
Tore her hair and wrung her hands
Then she met with another sailor
Walking on the Liverpool sands

‘O fair young maid are you a weeping
For your Johnny gone to sea?
If you wed with me tomorrow
I will kind and constant be.’

‘I will buy you sheets and blankets
I'll buy you a wedding ring
You shall have a gilded cradle
For to rock your baby in.’

Johnny Todd came back from sailing
Sailing o’er the ocean wide,
But he found that his fair and false one
Was another sailor's bride

All young men who go a-sailing
Or to fight the foreign foe,
Don’t you leave your love like Johnny
Marry her before you go.

X: 1
T: Johnny Todd
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
C: Trad (England)
Z: NP 29/09/2020
K: G
d2B2| d2B2| GB dd\ ee dB| GA d3/d/| cB A2| GB d2|[M:3/4] G3/B/ AG FD| [M:2/4] GB d3/A/| c/c/B G2||
w: | | John-ny Todd, he took a no-tion For to sail the o-cean wide And he left his true love be-hind him Weep-ing by the Li-ver-pool tide


Sourced from Singing Together. The words & music in both issues containing this song are the same (not always the case with Singing Together).
The music, with first verse, can be viewed by copy/pasting from "X:1" to "Li-ver-pool tide" into an ABC converter such as the one here: Mandolintab.net
NP

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 04 Oct 20 - 07:11 PM

Anglo,there's another thread for the stole\pinched\nicked parody
thread.cfm?threadid=66816
no answer though.

Subject: RE: Johnny Todd
From: Felipa
Date: 04 May 21 - 11:34 AM

no word of what Johnny Todd did when he heard the news ... unike the jilted Norwegian lover in "Skjøn Jomfru"

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 21 - 01:27 AM

he went off on his Tod, but first he read the tale of Mr Tod by Beatrice Potter

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Johnny Todd
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 21 - 05:02 PM

When I was building my repertoire years ago, I got the words and tune from the Digital Traditional Mirror, and it is still available here
.

It goes too low for my tenor recorder/English flute, so I transposed it from the key of C to F Major - I seem to recall someone at a session kindly checking it for me.