Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)

Subject: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:05 PM

I can't find a Mudcat reference to this truly brilliant YouTube clip from 1979:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOwwgtYi30Q

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 09:50 PM

It was on the Planxty album After The Break, made after Planxty reformed after their halcyon days of the earlier '70s. The story goes that it was the song once heard by W.B. Yeats that he only half-remembered and subsequently reinvented as Down By The Sall(e)y Gardens. I'm sure I once heard Polly Bolton doing a version that included both songs. Someone else will certainly correct my garbled account.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:44 PM

That's interesting, Steve. I've been wondering if there was any reference to the fragment that Yeats based the Sally Gardens on, as a friend and I plan to work up the song together. Any source for the rumour? Some similar words, but quite different tune. Haven't got access to my Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs, which the DT mirror site gives as the source for "Rambling Boys of Pleasure".

Rambling Boys of Pleasure

More at Origins (Sally Gardens)

Ross

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:19 AM

Ross, I've been rooting around (in both my brain and in Google) to try to substantiate the link between the two songs but without success so far. I can't find a reference that specifically mentions "Rambling Boys" as the inspiration for "Salley Gardens" though it's stubbornly lodged in my brain form somewhere!

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 06:12 AM

Steve, there is mention of the connection between the songs in the notes to "where the Linnets Sing", three generations of the Tunney family and their songs. They refer to a hand-written copy dated 1784 in a library in Hanover, New Hampshire written as "down in Sally's garden".

Brian

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 01:31 PM

A New Commentary on the Poems of W B Yeats by A Norman Jeffers (1968) says;

Yeats's footnote explained that 'This is an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballysodare, Sligo.'

[H E Shields] argues that it is 'The Rambling Boys of Pleasure', an Anglo-Irish broadside ballad, the text of which is in the National Library, Dublin. Mr Shields gives several versions and says it was written to the Irish metre of, for example, An beinnsin luachrua; he obtained his source from Mr Paddy Tunney.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 02:12 PM

The tune associated with Yeats's 1889 poem used to be known as "The Maids of Mourne Shore," published by George Petrie in 1855. It would need some adjustment to be fitted to the "Rambling Boys" words. Am not sure who assigned the tune to Yeats's words.

Yeats's rewrite of a traditional song based on the imperfect recollection of a few lines is a perfect example of the "folk process." So is the application of a tune. The stellar result is a bonus.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: mikesamwild
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:00 AM

I love the tune but found the words syrupy ( and does grass grow on weirs)so I glady adopted The Rambling Boys. it makes a nice Jig too. a bit like the song Jacky Daly sings on his first LP Topic record 'The Taylor Bawn'.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:08 AM

Wasn't that Seamus Creagh singing it? I must stop losing my sleeve notes...

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: mikesamwild
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:17 AM

I'll check it out too but I think it's on the solo album. A while back I fear.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:44 AM

The only Jackie Daly solo album I know of, Music from Sliabh Luachra Vol.6, is tunes only. The one I'm thinking of, which has that song, is Jackie and Seamus Creagh. It's a cracker.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 04:35 PM

I hasten to add that I meant unaccompanied solo album.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: mikesamwild
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 08:50 AM

You were right, sorry. but I can't find my tape of the Daly /
Creagh recording. It'll be on The Session

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: 'You Rambling Boys of Pleas
From: mikesamwild
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 02:58 PM

just been looking at the thread on Origins of Sally Gardens with a nice item by John Moulden which links the two songs well and convincingly.

Click here
------------link added. Mudelf--------------

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: alanabit
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 06:43 AM

Can anyone explain to me how to count the metre for this song? I think it slips in and out of 4/4 and 2/4, but I am not really sure. I do wish Mick Hanley and Andy Irvine would at least have the decency to make it look difficult as it is for ordinary mortals!

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 07:17 AM

In his book 'Aiming for the heart' Irvine gives it in 4/4/ but slips in a few 4/6 bars, I think these are the ones wrongfooting you.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 07:18 AM

6/44 ofcourse. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 07:45 AM

I think Irvine and other singers missed the point of this song by singing it in rhythm rather than 'pulse, as the Tunney family did
The heavy handed accompaniment which forces the song into unnatural breaks and turns the narrative to nonsense doesn't help
In my opinion - of course
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 08:52 AM

I think you may have hyper-corrected there, Peter!

Call me Mr Untrad, but I rather like Andy Irvine's Planxty version.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 08:53 AM

I decided to best leave it and not make things any worse. Not my day, possibly.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 09:37 AM

Sorry - wasn't ving a poke at anybody
This happens to be one of my favourite songs
I can't think of a more beautiful description of youth than "But we are young and the world is wide"
I tend to lose that in Andy's rendition
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: GUEST,Brien Hoye
Date: 12 Aug 18 - 06:02 PM

I agree, Jim Carroll. The imagery is much richer in The Rambling Boys, etc...and the best way to get the feeling for the song is to turn off the recording as soon as you get the gist of the melody and sing it unaccompanied in the woodshed if necessary. You should feel your own rhythm in response to how the language affects you, not to be governed by melody or time signature. Sure, the first time is hard, but if you have any success whatsoever, you'll find your own voice.

Subject: RE: Andy Irvine: You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Yeats)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Aug 18 - 08:06 PM

The song appeared again on 'Parachilna' by Andy Irvine with Rens van der Zalm, but under the title 'I wish I was in Belfast Town'.

Andy and Rens van der Zalm drove through the bitter winter of July 2012, camped in the wilderness and kept warm by building camp fires out of old railway sleepers. Slept in swags, drank Cooper's Sparkling Ale and recorded an album in old historic woolsheds, shearers quarters and old forgotten schoolhouses!

It's a memorable album too - one of Andy's best!