lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: sharyn
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:35 PM

Are you lot, serious? I can't tell.

How about, for Clerk Colville, after his lady says, "Be sure you seek no well-faured may,"if the mermaid replies:

I'll scarify my face, my lord,
I'll black it good and rend my hair,
Then we can f_ _ _ all night and day
And of your lady have no care.

Somehow I doubt this would change the outcome ...

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:05 PM

The princess saw the hole in the boat
And so she stuffed her crown in.
Sir Pat and all his crew were saved
She stopped em all from drownin'.

(That's assuming the Norwegian princess was in fact the chief cargo as some say.)

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:59 PM

sex changes....Famous flower of serving Men

you can't tell me there wasn't a bit of hanky panky going on there, pre=revelation that is. how many men do you call....famous flower. You can kiss my tulips and play with my periwinkle, if there wasn't.

And why do they have to burn Mum at the end.....?

Ammended version

Jump off the pyre and kiss me Mum!
We'll both go shopping and be good chums.

Seriously, wouldn't that be a lot nicer?

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 02:12 PM

I take this thread as an opportunity for plain old fun.

If only Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender had sought pre-marital counseling....

Dan

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 01:34 PM

I think if you look again you will find Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh got lost, but is warming his bones in the newly re-roofed Stonehenge "Hard Rock" cafe.
Quack!
#GtD.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 01:21 PM

stop behaving like fecking iddjits if every song had a happy ending, it would be tedious, get a grip , you will be having sex changes next

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 01:19 PM

Tom Dooley did face the hangman ,furthermore he was innocent, its a true story, FOLK SONGS as they are represent real life.
they are not bollody mills and boon stories

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:35 PM

The twelve month and a day being 'oer
The ghost, it started off
All right I'll pop back from the dead
And then we'll have it off.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 11:03 AM

Here's my ending for Claudy Banks:

But when I had disclosed myself
She threw a hissy fit.
She threw her fist into my nose,
Saying, "Johnny, you're a shit.
You seem to think it funny
To mess around my head.
I wouldn't marry you
If every man on earth were dead."

And when I heard this dreadful news
I said, "Fiddle-dee-dee.
There's many a change worked on a chap
By seven years at sea.
I am an altered young man
And so I wish you joy,
'Cause as for me I'd rather wed
A handsome cabin boy."

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: autoharpbob
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 10:38 AM

Saying "May I come along with you?"
"Oh yes my love, may as well!"

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: muppett
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 10:13 AM

What if I'd not been a Wild Rover for many a year?
What if I wasn't going to Scarborough Fair?
What if Tom Pierse hadn't lent out his grey mare?
What if that Sailor hadn't become Drunk, we wouldn't have to do owt with him?
What if I hadn't gone off with that girl whose hair hung over her shoulder tied up with a black velvet band?

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Bernard
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 10:02 AM

I've been singing this 'extra verse' to Claudy Banks, which gives the song the ending I thought it may really have had in the real world...!
When Betsy, she heard him say so
She smacked him around the head!
Saying 'After I have finished with you
You will wish you were really dead!
You'll wish that you had perished
All on the coast of Spain,
And if you know what's good for you
You'll just sod off again!'
I've always thought the happy endings on most 'broken token' songs were a bit far fetched...!

;o)

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: InOBU
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:48 AM

Oh... banks of red roses and Rodger Casement, my songs, sorry, I did not know my cookie got ate...
Lorcan Otway

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:43 AM

...a holiday, a holiday, and the first one of the year....

Matty Groves saw it was raining, stayed in and had a beer!

I guess we all feel sorry for Matty as he always gets quoted, but the when the Fairport track starts on Liege and Lief, it couldn't be any other song, could it!

However a member of the audience said to me the other day, "I'm glad you don't sing all these miserable songs all night"......so I guess I'm leaning towards your argument here Alan....

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:41 AM

Yes, I can hear Banks of Red Roses

So he took out his pen knife, it was both long and sharp
and he plunged it right into his own poor Mary's heart
But lucky they were next to a top knotch hospital
And Mary's now doing well, and Johnny's gang to jail...

And it being Sweedan, he's soon to be reformed
And will stop killing girl friends and leaving us forelorn
Yes he'll stop knifing sweathearts, he now knows it is wrong
And poor ol' Alan Whittle will have his happy song

ah... and the inspiration of all this...

to the tune of Banna Strand...

Sir Rodger survied the hanging in dreay london town
He dropped on Old Victoria and broke her bloody crown
So she freed the Irish nation, invited us to tea
She and Rodger took a holliday all on the Irish sea.

And by the way the british fireing squad missed Connolly and all
Just like our Cousin Rodger, who missed that dreadful fall
Michael Collens had a hat band made of the finest steel
The Titanic sank the iceburg, and Obama's change is real.

(Sorry... YES, I DID vote for the bugger)

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:36 AM

"Leveller, what's that about great minds?

hahaha! Is that great or dirty?

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:28 AM

Those Babes in the Woods should have used a Os map and kept to the path.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Crane Driver
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:24 AM

Hey, come off it lads - these are folk songs - we're not supposed to get pleasure from them!

{runs for cover}

;-}

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Taconicus
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:08 AM

Aww, there's nothing like a good sad-ending howler. But this reminds me of the Boy Scouts, where we sang songs rewritten with happy endings.

Oh my darlin, oh my darlin,
Oh my darlin Clementine,
With artificial respiration
I did save my Clementine!

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:58 AM

An all-purpose happy ending:

Out by the henhouse the rooster did crow
The sun through the casement did gleam
The hectic events and the tragic results
Turned out to be only a dream

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Nicholas Waller
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:54 AM

"Lady, come down the stairs," says Fat Lankin.
"How can I see in the dark?" she says unto him.
"You have silver mantles," says Fat Lankin.
"Lady, come down the stairs by the light of them."
Down the stairs the lady came, thinking no harm
Lankin was ready to surprise her with a treat.
There was food all in the kitchen
There was food all in the hall
There was food all in the parlour
Where my lady she did eat.
Now Fat Lankin shall be cheered
to the rafters oh so high,
And the good nurse shall be turning
in the fire, another pie.

Said the lord unto his lady as he rode tapping his tum
"Beware of Fat Lankin, who learned cooking from his mum;
Beware the wine, beware the cheese, beware of Fat Lankin
Make sure the doors are bolted well
Or toss your diet in the bin"

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:52 AM

Leveller, what's that about great minds?

This is what jumped out at me.

Lord Barnard looked at Little Musgrave
His face was rather gleesome,
He jumped right in between them both
Crying 'Let's have a threesome!'

Spooky or what?

Of course if they'd all read the warnings in the first verse none of these bad endings would have happened.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:43 AM

And if only Dives had taken Lazarus down the pub...

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Silas
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:40 AM

And if Benbow had jumped at just the right time...

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: Silas
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:39 AM

And if only Franklin could have wated for global warming...

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:31 AM

"It's well I like your feather bed
And better I like your sheets
But I'd like it best if you hopped in
And gave us both a treat."

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:10 AM

Yes but someone (was it Garrick?) decided to piss about with shakespeare's masterpiece. Can't we piss about with materpieces?

its our turn on the earth to live and breathe - must every folk evening have its Grand Guignol moments - and usually longer than moments.

as Christy sang, 'some old songs aren't worth singing...'

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,colin holt
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:08 AM

And if John Ball had just kept his mouth shut ......

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:06 AM

and if only Anachie Gordon had got home on the earlier tide....

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: TheSnail
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:00 AM

From what I have heard, in the original story of King Lear that Shakespeare knicked from Hollinshed and others, Cordelia defeated her sisters, restoresd Lear to the throne and then ruled in her own right after he died.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 07:59 AM

these are our songs.

That's a common misunderstanding of the revival - they are not our songs, but the songs of those who made them. For sure we may remake them, but they then become something else - much as Stonehenge would become something else if we remade that.

Subject: RE: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,MC Fat (at work)
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 07:50 AM

It would have been a lot better if Willie McBride had come back from the First World War and if they hadn't found Lord Lovels fairy bride in the Mistletoe Bough

Subject: lets rewrite folksongs with happy ending
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 Jan 11 - 07:38 AM

Today i was moved to write this on the Banna strand thread

'yes its still a very sad song.

When I was young I used to think that 18th century guy who wrote a happy ending to King lear was nuts. Nowadays, I'm not so sure.

If Rc had stayed aboard the submarine , gone back to germany and had tea with the Kaiser. That would have been nicer.'

Really we could write all folksongs to give them a happy ending. Does Matty groves always have to have his head cut off, must Tom dooley always face the hangman, do the Yellow gypsies have to go the same way.....

these are our songs.

Lets plan for a nicer world.