Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)

Subject: Lyr Add: BEACON PARK (Cyril Tawney)
From: Gurney
Date: 25 Apr 10 - 01:07 AM

BEACON PARK
A lullaby by Cyril Tawney.

CHORUS:
Beacon Park is a peaceful place,
If a dog should bark, it's a shocking disgrace,
And don't you dare cough when the Sun goes down.
We're sensitive people on Beacon Down.
Mmmm mmn. Ohmmm mmn.
Mmmm mmn. Ohmmm mmn.

The decibel level determines the rates.
Their cutlery's rubber, and so is their plates.
The birds never sing in the undergrowth.
Every baby is born with a cork in his mouth.
CHORUS

At the foot of each garden, there stands a screen
Enclosing a quaint little field latrine.
It may be unhealthy; it may make you blush,
But it won't wake you up like that noisy old flush.
CHORUS

The garbage disposal is done without noise.
The bins are constructed of special alloys.
The gates are spring-loaded so they never slam,
And the dustmen take courses with Geraldine Lamb.
CHORUS

This pious fixation for stifling sounds
Is gaining supporters in leaps and bounds.
The church at St. Boniface muffles its peals
And the Albion forwards are whispering, "Heel!"
CHORUS


Complaints were laid about Cyril playing his 'noisy folk tapes' at night.
Geraldine Lamb was a dance teacher.

^^

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 03:54 PM

What better way to get revenge on cranky neighbors than to write a satirical song about them?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Mo the caller
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 05:37 PM

Beacon park where?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Mo the caller
Date: 28 Apr 10 - 05:37 PM

And when?
Please.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 03:14 AM

Plymouth, England. 1959, when he got out of the navy. From his LP 'A Mayflower Garden.'
Cyril calls it 'A modern lullaby' on the sleeve blurb, and he sang it in a confiding & whispering manner, like a lullaby.
Plymouth Albion Rugby Football Club, Geraldine Lamb Ballet School. As for the St Boniface church, you would have to do some research, as there were at least two in Plymouth, Anglican and Catholic, at a cursary check.
Chris.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 09:38 PM

Gurney-

Thanks for posting this one. It's not one that I've run across before. Are there other such gems?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 10:13 PM

There is a sort of "on the other hand" by him, about the northern English, with the refrain "Oh! Oh! Oh! Don't their voices carry so?", but I can't find it at the moment.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Apr 10 - 11:17 PM

Don't know that one, Joe.

Charlie, the LP list is:
'Outward Bound.' "This ditty from the age of sail..."
'Of Plymouth Plantation.' Readings from the articles of the emigrants.
'Rounding the Horn.' Compares Plymouth girls unfavourably with Valparaiso girls!
'Farewell to Kingsbridge.' From the Baring-Gould collection.
'Truro Agricultural Show.' Dialect song, like several 'fair' songs.
'William Coombe/Crantock Games.' Murder Ballad.
'Beacon Park.'
'A Cornish Young Man.' From the Sharpe collection.
'The Bellringing.' One of Cyril's standards. Collected by S. B-G. from a Dartmoor farmer.
'Sir Francis Drake. The Armada song.
'Second Class Citizen's Song.' C.T.. Cyril bemoans the lessening importance of Plymouth in London's view.
'The Oggie Man. 'C.T.. Plaint about impermanence.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Mo the caller
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 03:16 AM

I wonder how many Beacon Parks there are.
The one the dancers probably know best is Litchfield, for many years the campsite for the Festival.
But that sounded a bit far inland for a seafarer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 03:42 AM

Gurney, I made the correction you specified and deleted the correction request, but is it "The church at St. Boniface muffles its peals," or "The church of St. Boniface muffles its peals"?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Gurney
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 03:40 PM

Listened carefully again, Joe. It is definitely 'at.'

When the first verse is sung as the chorus, he also added "'cause" as a prefix, but only sometimes!

Cyril didn't seem to consider his lyrics to be chiselled in stone, though. Rather, he wrote them, and the then polished them down. This became more obvious lately, when an emigree brought back an early verse from 'Grey Funnel Line' which has become reincorporated.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 07:25 PM

There was a school called St Boniface in Beacon Park, Plymouth, opposite Plymouth Albion Rugby club. Next to it was (it is still there), but I don't think it is called St Boniface. I reckon Cyril assumed it was... I was a pupil at the school until 1983.
Dave

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: Gurney
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 12:40 AM

Well, Dave, although Cyril became a Plymouth character, he wasn't born there. Gosport, according to one website, was where he was born (I thought it was Huntingdon) and this song was written early after he got out of the Andrew, and was settling in Plymouth, so you may be right.

Subject: Lyr Add: WEST YORKSHIRE LULLABY (Cyril Tawney)
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 09:01 PM

The "on the other hand" that I mentioned upthread is called "West Yorkshire Lullaby" & is on his tape _Man of Honour: The Non-maritime Songs_. "Beacon Park" is on the same tape, and he even says in the notes "There aren't many Beacon Parks in West Yorkshire, folks!". Perhaps an actual Brit can supply the doubtful word in the fifth stanza.

LYR ADD:
WEST YORKSHIRE LULLABY

Hush-a-bye, my little one,
Close your pretty mouth.
I know things aren't so peaceful
Since we moved up from the south.
The folks up here are nice enough,
As kind as people go,
But oh! oh! oh! don't their voices carry so!
Oh! oh! oh! don't their voices carry so!

They're fond of conversation --
Ah, but that's the very catch,
For they turn ev'ry tete-a-tete
Into a shouting match.
You address them sotto voce;
They reply fortissimo --
Oh!...

What seemed to be an argument
Turns out quite the reverse.
You'd think two auctioneers
Were taking time off to rehearse.
You'd hear less noise if a carthorse
Trod upon a gouty toe.
Oh!...

It probably goes back to days
When they were in the pram
With a foghorn of a father
And a klaxon of a ma'am.
With larynxes like timberwolves
And lungs like buffalo.
Oh!...

In days gone by, town criers cried
And [hoisted?] every word.
Wesley never preached outside,
But no one would have heard,
And Captain Oates unplugged his ears
And sailed off to the snow,
Crying "Oh!..."

There's lots of ruined abbeys
In the countryside around,
But the reason wasn't Cromwell
Or King Henry, I'll be bound.
It was much more like what happened
To the walls of Jericho.
"Oh!..."

But hush-a-bye, my little one;
We really ought to smile,
'Cos daddy's selling hearing aids
And making quite a pile.
His business never slackens,
So it's not all bad, you know.
"Ho!..."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 08:45 AM

The suspect word in v. 5 of 'Beacon Park' (where Cyril had his first digs after leaving the Royal Navy) is "wasted". This song and 'West Yorkshire Lullaby' were well-accepted both in and outside of their 'home' regions. They are on the cassette "Man of Honour" NGL 102, of which I have a very small number for sale, as does the online EFDSS Folk Shop.

Rosemary

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Beacon Park (Cyril Tawney)
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 10:04 AM

Sorry folks, I'm suffering from a sprained hand, and must have sprained my brain at the same time. I should have said V.5 of "West Yorkshire Lullaby"

Rosemary Tawney