Lyr Req: Roguey

Subject: Lyr Req: Roguey
From: GUEST,Bandanaman
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 04:37 PM

Hiya, I was wondering if you can help. One night in the Celtic Connections festival club, Doris sang a song with the line:

"I'll give ye roguey if ye try to roguey me".

I was just wondering if anyone knows the name of the song and the lyrics?

Ta muchly

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Roguey
From: Drumshanty
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 06:55 AM

It's "Auld Roguie Grey".

Lizzie Higgins's version and the info about it is on the Mustrad site. Not quite the same as Doris's (or Janet Weatherston's) I don't think, but close.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Roguey
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 09:13 AM

This one was nagging me yesterday, so I'm glad that's cleared up. Perhaps the spelling threw me; at any rate I didn't make the connection, though I was listening to Lizzie Higgins singing the thing only last week. The song has a pedigree dating back to the mid C17; the Mustrad article gives some details.  The Roud Folk Song Index covers it under two headings at present: Roud 5132 and Roud 8156.

In the DT:

Knaves Will Be Knaves  -from D'Urfey, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719-1720) III, 87 ['A Song: I Went to the Alehouse'].

The Knave  -from George Ritchie Kinloch, The Ballad Book, 1827, 82-83.

A Gob is a Slob  -Oscar Brand's commercial re-write, c.1949.

Forum discussions:

Lyr Req: Alan Arkin's 'A Knave is a Knave'  -basically the Pills text as sung by Alan Arkin, plus the usual modern derivatives copied-and-pasted from the DT.
Bold rogue  -'The Rogue ': unprovenanced text.

Other examples:

http://mtrecords.co.uk/articles/mitchell.htm  -'The Bold Rogue' from Kevin Mitchell of Derry. He picked up a set of words somewhere (he doesn't specify) and put them to a tune of his own.

http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/Olson/SONGTXT1.HTM#DNTYDCK  -transcriptions at the late Bruce Olson's website: 'A Dainty Ducke' (Loose and Humorous Songs from Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, 1868); ' The Kind Mistress, Or, A Good turn done at a time of need' (Pepys Ballads, V, 212, printed by Charles Barnet); text from The New Academy of Complements, Song 249, p 257, 1669. Essentially the same as the later Pills example); text from David Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs, II, 220, 1776; text from from George Ritchie Kinloch, The Ballad Book, 1827, 82-83; partial text from D I Harker, Songs from the Manuscript Collection of John Bell, 111, 1987.

Pepys 5.212 The Kind Mistress,/ OR, [A]/ Good turn done at a time of need  -broadside facsimile.

Additional links:

George Ritchie Kinloch at the Internet Archive

An Index of Poetry in Printed Miscellanies, 1640-1682.  - The New Academy of Complements is not available online, but a list of contents can be retrieved from Dr Adam Smyth's database: search for the book title in the 'text' field.

David Herd at the Internet Archive

Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript: Loose and Humorous Songs  -facsimile at Google Books.