Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Abby Sale
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:35 PM

Dick, I have the same info on women as significant or primary carriers of songs on sex. Especially in those locals you cite. Also from Sheila Douglas, who knows Scotland; and even Legman. I suggest that it is only from Victorian times that women were assumed not to control or enjoy sex, masturbate, be aggressive, have orgasm, etc. Even Kinsey was destroyed for suggesting these things exist. FWIW, in traditional Jewish society and religious law, it is clearly the women who "own" and control. It is women (in law) who are _entitled_ to have sex, not men.

SJL, You say much of interest but re: "There is no equivalent of this sort of "humorous" folk song for women." Beg to differ. See Jean Ritchie's family institutionalization of the war between men and women. (Not her phrase - I think it's Thurber's.) On a Saturday night they had challenge singing (among other stuff). Men would sing anti-female songs and women reposte with anti-male ones. These were taken as jesting and humorous. Of specific songs I only remember women singing Equinoxal and Phoebe. Either might sing Farmer's Curst Wife but would alter the last verse appropriate to gender.

There are many, many songs where the woman wins out and I'm not thinking of the whore stealing sailor's clothes; I'm thinking of winning in battle, wits, justified trickery, piracy,
etc.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:30 AM

Spot on. I believe also that in the interests of keeping folk music alive, women have been carriers of men's songs and vice-versa.

To illustrate my point, listen to these two versions of "The Cruel Mother":

Tom Spiers

Emily Smith

I am hard pressed to criticize this gentleman because he is both very knowledgeable and a fine musician, but Emily Smith brings something to this ballad that takes it to your heart. That is because this is a woman's ballad.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:11 AM

What's more, media representations of men and women now encourage both sexes to act according to the horniest and most aggressive masculine stereotypes of the past.

In other words, like narcissistic borderline personalities who haven't yet broken any laws.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Jun 13 - 10:07 AM

> Lighter, you are right.

Words rarely heard.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 10:32 AM

Jon-
I've been so informed by the late Margo Mayo, and had this reinforced by comments from Sheila Kay Adams, Jeannie Robertson and others.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 09:42 AM

Lighter, you are right. It is most definitely by default. These kinds of songs fall into a man's domain. Until fairly recently, men and women have not been herded by Marxist intellectuals and the powers that be (according to their own agenda of divide and conquer)to accept false egalitarianism. And now, fueled by the mass media to share all the same social space. For ages beforehand, women and men each had their own society within their own gender and that was a good thing! Now you have a situation where, except for the proverbial night out with the women or the men, each is compelled to share all social space. This has greatly fomented the "war between the sexes," if not created it. Now women want to change men to suit themselves and vice-versa, and like I said, this has not been for the better. I am not talking about extreme situations such as wife-beating, it is the evolution society in general that has come to revile such behavior and men to their credit have actually been the ones to take the lead on elevating standards for male behavior towards women. Recall how the husband in "The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin" feared the consequences of offending the male kin of her family if he were to actually beat her. In a microcosm that is how it came about.

I had to laugh when I read Abby Sale's post up above as she was talking about mismatch between sex drives in an egalitarian way. I can tell you honestly that I have never met a woman (myself included) who wanted to have sex as much, or in as varied a way, as a man. Believe me, that is a great source of humor amongst women. Just this morning, on a news program, some woman was plugging her book about the importance of sleep with a woman commentator and a joke was made about how sleep is like sex to a man. That's how it really is ;-)This song is basically pornographic and the reference is the same as to pornography today. It caters to a male FANTASY of this voracious oversexed woman that doesn't exist (and btw, lesbians seldom look like the women in pornography ;-). I'm not even sure that most men would want it to go much beyond fantasy. Like you said, this is an outlet. This has always been the case. Nowadays we are all becoming confused about things that we all used to take for granted.

In reality, women's complaints about sex fall into a different department altogether. They have all to do with a lack of tenderness. I wrote those lyrics because I can never resist an opportunity to show how clever I am. Many times I pretend to be offended just to stir up some controversy. It's very devilish of me. But it is not because women tend to make up jokes and songs like that. Women might be offended by a song like this, but only mildly if she has a lick of wisdom.

Sooo, can't we just cuddle? ;-)))

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 08:49 PM

Dick, "the" carriers? What makes you think so?

My impression is that some women singers in Scotland and Appalachia (and the Ozarks) may have been more forthright than elsewhere, but surely the bawdiest songs even in those areas were chiefly transmitted by men.

Recall too that 100 years ago even "Oh No John" was considered nearly unprintable. Yet most men may have thought that sort of song was too mild even to bother with, and they didn't often sing truly bawdy songs for the collectors - who wouldn't usually take them down anyway.

Thus the women's repertoires may have seemed "bawdier" to genteel ears mainly by default.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Uke
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 03:45 PM

Contrary to the general opinion here, I think TGBW goes fine to "The Old 100th" tune. But I think the text must be slightly different.

Perhaps the text has been altered a little so the syllables will fall evenly across whatever tune is being used, and without melisma.

As I recall, Ed Cray sets the words to "The Old 100th" in his book "The Erotic Muse" and it also works perfectly well there.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 11:48 AM

I've always been intrigued by the fact that women, traditionally, were the carriers of bawdy songs, at least in Scotland and Appalachia.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 08:44 PM

MtheGM & GUEST: Truly, Old Hundred doesn't fit well; one has to put a lot of extra syllables on single notes, and split up words:
A sai lor toldme be fore he died.
I don't know whether the bas tard lied. etc.
However, the touch of blasphemy more than made up for that among male St Andrews undergraduates in 1958. They could even sing it marching down the street to piss off the end of the pier, and respectable persons observing them from windows might imagine they were being pious.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 06:51 PM

Sorry about the typos. I was trying to type and get dinner on the table at the same time. Wouldn't want anyone to have to skin a wether on my account.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 05:51 PM

Btw, nooo greg stephens. No Froggie, Uh-Uh. If you put those lyrics to Froggie, you effectively remove every last trace of humor from it. Whereas if you sang it to St. Bees would be torn between the desire to laugh out loud or throw a drink in your face, on the other I would not feel any ambivalence whatsoever about going for the drink. If there's one thing in this world I could not abide, it would be a yahoo singing about a lethal sex machine without the slightest sense of irony. No sir. And if you sing this with any sort of a drawl, ye shall not be spared!

Lighter, that is not a valid theory. It's absurd. Women have always had their songs. There is this one, "I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again" (Oh Lord). That is pretty much "When I Was A Maid" - except that Granny decided it needed to be injected with a little humor to take some if the sting out. And I'll bet she had a whole slew of fiddling, banjo strumming, catpaw clacking relatives to help her add the finishing touches.

"The Maid Freed From The Gallows"? Let's see...who hopes to be rescued by their own true love when deserted by their family? Well, anybody I guess, but in this case, it's a maid. And I would infer also that he had something to do with her predicament. All you have to do is research the history of hanging women in Britain, particularly young women, girls, to figure out what she was likely guilty of. It is probably the reason her crime was not explicated, and why the crime was reduced to a non-capital offense by 1922 due to a sea change in the way the judiciary and the people looked upon such an unfortunate event. Most of these young women were servants by occupation and under the age of 16. The sad thing is, we know that babies are sometimes stillborn and sometimes they die shortly after birth. Since many a young girl gave birth alone (with her back against a thorn as it were), there were no witnesses to clear her of that particular wrongdoing. According to the Infanticide Act of 1624, for an unmarried woman, the mere act of concealing the baby's death was proof of guilt. I'm sure most of these infants died at the hands of their Cruel Mother, but the odds are, at least a few of them were unjustly accused.

So maybe when the true love comes to save her, he is really coming to inform the judge of her innocence. And why would he do that? Damned if I know. I've never been able to figure men out. Could be he knows of her innocence and feels he must step up to avert a miscarriage of justice. Could be he doesn't want her to hang and feels he must step up and lie to save her life. Men are funny creatures. You never know what they're going to do when they're not inventing strange sex machines :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 05:38 PM

Interesting example, M, But even stereotypical mothers-in-law are a special subset of "all women."

It's been a long time since I heard a "mother-in-law" joke here in America - but maybe I don't get out enough.

The same goes for jokes about "women drivers" and "dumb blondes"(I don't know of any folksongs about them). The objects of the jokes aren't all women, they're a certain kind of "straw woman," so to speak.

Personally, I don't think the psychosocial analysis ("political" in Trendspeak) of folklore can tell us much, if anything, about society. It can tell us mainly about the songs and stories analyzed, and perhaps something about those who especially enjoy (or dislike) them. (It can often tell us a lot about the analyst too....)

To learn about society, one studies society, and not just some of its artistic productions - which will presumably reflect what is found elsewhere rather than vice versa.

And even then one draws large conclusions very cautiously.

Joe: Thanks for your tune. I can't quite place it.

Dick: Yours is the second reported ex. using "The Strawberry Roan" -some 20 years earlier than the other (found by Ed Cray).

And from Australia comes (wait for it) "The Syncopated Clock" (a pop hit in the U.S. in 1951).

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 04:45 PM

THe tune I learned for it ca 1947 was essentially that of "The Strawberry Roan".

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 04:00 PM

Except in Pakistan...

At it again, eh?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 01:17 PM

Hmmm ~~ Maybe you'd better flex yourself into that chastity belt of yours

Laughs like a wizard

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 12:00 PM

No wait! I've got it!

I will make a youtube video. I will get the angelic women from my choir to sing this song with that tune and my lyrics. And just like Percy et al. used the superior medium of publishing to eclipse the oral tradition, I will likewise use the superior medium of youtube to eclipse your literary one. I will "improve" and "refine" and ultimately bury your version.

And I will put across the top in bold letters, "FROM THE MOUTH OF THE GREAT BLOODY SPINNING WHEEL!" And people will say, "My, my, weren't women clever back then!" They will never doubt me unless they pick up a book, so you see, my chances of my prevailing in this matter are excellent.

Step aside! I know how this is done! (laughs like a witch) For I have learned from the masters, those wicked sorcerers with a pen! And the good old days are gone. You can no longer torch me up with society's approval :-)

Except in Pakistan...

Some imagination, eh?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:55 AM

But in another sort of folklore, the joke, Jon, would you say that was the case? Try counting just all the mother-in-law jokes you can find...

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:46 AM

> BGW could be sung to any of those with the 4444 metre.

So ytue.

But it isn't. It's sung primarily to only three, the others being unique occurrences in the record. (The actual distribution of tunes among singers is unknown, but it would be startling to discover that "Old 100th," "St. Bees," and later "Froggie/Crawdad" were not the "usual" tunes.

I wonder if women have no hate-filled folksongs about men because there's no "lady-like code" that prevents them from being as outspoken against men as they like whenever they like. Men, on the other hand, used to have a "gentleman's code" (as well as a stoic one) that inhibited them from blaming women (other than Eve, in certain professional circles) for their and the world's ills.

Thus the men need an outlet in songs and jokes directed against the opposite sex and the women don't.

Just another hypothesis.

BTW, the proportion of clearly misogynist folksongs to all folksongs seems to be minuscule.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:38 AM

Here's the answer to the singer whose name I had forgotten, along with another example, from Blandiver, from a thread I OPd on The Wicker Man film a while back

"Willie O' Winsbury tune was originally Fause Foodrage and would have remained so had not the wind turned the pages of Andy Irvine's music book? Less forgiveable, perhaps, is Pentangle's use of Lay the Bent for The Cruel Sister"

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:29 AM

We have been into all this before, about how any song in common metre, allowing for variations between 4343- and 4444- stressed lines, i e ballad metre, can be sung to the tune of any other. Sometimes, from this, you will get changes in the classic settings regarded as appropriate, as eg the tune of Fause Foodrage has become associated ubiquitously with Willie-o-Winsbury bacause someone by misapprehension recorded it so ~~ forget who, but it's all in one of the threads somewhere. So now try singing BGW to that & you will find it goes perfectly well. So it is in fact mainly convention that assocs one ballad tune with one set of words; & BGW could be sung to any of those with the 4444 metre.

We have had lots of threads on this.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:20 AM

And ~ uhmmm ~

we can go with the chastity belt. I'm flexible

Would you care to rephrase that?.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:17 AM

Susan

Hysteria, [whence 'hysterical'] like your children, was born of your womb ~~

X❤♥M♥❤X

Wikipedia
For at least two thousand years of European history until the late nineteenth century hysteria referred to a medical condition thought to be particular to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus (from the Greek ὑστέρα "hystera" = uterus), such as when a neonate emerges from the female birth canal. The origin of the term hysteria is commonly attributed to Hippocrates, even though the term isn't used in the writings that are collectively known as the Hippocratic corpus

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:10 AM

It does indeed fit the St Bees tune(with modified last line) perfectly. But it also sings perfectly to the Froggie tune as well, with the inserted uh-huhs.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 11:02 AM

St. Bees

Michael, you're right. This is the tune that fits. Froggie does not at all. In fact, my lyrics with this tune- bloody hysterical!

Hysterical. What does that word mean actually? Where does it come from?

And look Lighter,if you want to challenge me on the issue of hardware contributing to female bondage, we can go with the chastity belt. I'm flexible.

I really think it would be fab if y'all made a youtube video of it. Seriously. If you think the song worthwhile, it will survive longer in that format than a book.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: cooperman
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 10:40 AM

I always thought Froggie went a courting was sung to the Bloody Great Wheel tune!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 09:32 AM

The tune I have always known this to is, I think, having played it a couple of times on YouTube, based on not quite accurate recollection of the hymn tune called St Bees ~~ used for hymn "Hark My Soul, It Is The Lord". Seems to me to go best, and with fewest complications like introduction of anomalous 'umm-hmm's & such, of all the tunes nominated here thus far.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 09:21 AM

Thanks for the link, SLJ. You'll be happy to know that I'm familiar with Maines's amazing discussion of Taylor's inventions of ca1870.

The website photo of the "Manipulator" is quite something. However, it bears *no resemblance whatever* to Taylor's own illustration of it in his "Pelvic and Hernial Therapeutics" (1885).

This makes me suspect that the thing in the photo is a postmodern sculpture inspired by "The Bloody Great Wheel." I don't see any documentation at the website, so I reserve my opinion.

Taylor's machines were designed (he said) to treat hernias through abdominal massage. He had another one (for men!) that bears some resemblance to the device described in the song.

It would be interesting to know how many of his machines Taylor actually manufactured and sold.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 09:04 AM

that was me, logged out for some reason

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 08:33 AM

I have to say I have never heard The Engineers Wheel sung to Old 100th.It doesn't seem to go at all. Always to St Bees or Froggie Went a-courting

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 05:56 PM

Old Hundred is, of course, best known, hymnwise, as "All people that on Earth do dwell", a metrical version of Psalm 100, hence the tune's name. GBW doesn't seem to me to fit that tune too well, metrically.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 03:01 PM

It is rash to speak of "the" tune to this song -- or of "Froggy Went a-Courting" for that matter. I don't happen to have heard a tune that fits both, but that is no surprise. Of the two for The Wheel that I have heard, the Vermont one was rather nondescript (scale DRMFSLTdrmfslt; dots mean continuation for a beat):
Sd.ddrmr.TS.
Sr.rrmfm.rd.
mf.fL.fm.mS.
mr.rrmfm.rd.
The Scottish one was Old Hundred!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 12:46 PM

Excuse me. That should have read, "Invented by Lazy, Self-Centered Men Who Are Threatened By Women's Sexuality"

Nothing misogynist about any of this? Yeah, right.

And btw, according to anthropologist David D. Gilmore:

Man hating among women has no popular name because it has never (at least not until recently) achieved apotheosis as a social fact, that is, it has never been ratified into public, culturally recognized and approved institutions ... As a cultural institution, misogyny therefore seems to stand alone as a gender-based phobia, unreciprocated.

There is no equivalent of this sort of "humorous" folk song for women. Instead there are lamentations, "I have no money, no decent clothes, I'm overworked, I'm pregnant and abandoned, he gets drunk and beats me..." Somebody's lying here.

When people victimize others, there is generally speaking, some sort of rationale involved that blames or demonizes the victim. And if you think this song is funny, then maybe you should move to Pakistan :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Abby Sale
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 12:37 PM

It seems fairly obvious that a sadist must justify the sadism - "the victim deserves it for xxx reason." Even if the justification is absurd, it seems (to me) needful for the sadist to proceed without qualms.

I think she is being punished and I think her "crime" is a simple, common one: having a greater sexual apatite/need than the man. The mere existence of the song is justified by that. I've many times heard the notion that referring to another being "oversexed" just means having a greater apatite than the speaker. Makes sense to me.

Dick: I can only go by my perception of others' perceptions. The venue I sang Sea Crab in was a friendly, singer-songwriter place and appropriate laughter from them was evident. I'm pretty sure BGW would have been greeted less kindly for the reason of tending towards hate crime. Maybe I'm projecting, though. I could take a survey there on this next month, if you like. It would hardly be a valid sampling of US reactions, but if you like...

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 11:34 AM

Why, thank you Lighter. It took me all of 5 minutes to earn my ticket to hell :-)

Invented by Men

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 09:36 AM

In my youth, we invariably sang it to the hymn tune St Bees(or a slight variation thereof). Then the Froggie Went a Courting version started coming in, in the 60's, possibly influenced by a commercial recording of rugger songs(performed by the Jock Strapp Ensemble), which used the latter tune.I much prefer the stately measured tones of the hymn tune.]

I don't see it is particularly sexist or mysogynistic, far from it. The version we sang recounted the genuine and caring attempts of an engineer to provide his wife with some fun which he was incapable of providing himself. Her end was a tragic and unforeseen accident, and in no way presented as any kind of judgement on her. What we sang was "now we come to the painful bit" (nothing about a biter being bit or anything).

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 09:14 AM

The tune is reminiscent of Froggie's Courting but very slow and ponderous, echoing the rhythm of the machine

|So he invented a | prick of steel a-| hummm-| mmmmmmm|
|So he invented a | prick of steel | driven round by a | bloody great wheel. A-|
| hummm-| mmmmmmm a- | hummm-| mmmmmmm|

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 09:11 AM

SJL shows that the women are just like the men: when they get sent to hell, they will absolutely not be coming back again.

But seriously:

There are no less than *fourteen* recognizably different tunes that have carried the "BGW" lyrics. In addition, it sometimes appears without any tune at all, as in RoyH's recollection.

By far the most usual melody before about 1960, however, was the hymn tune known usually as "Old Hundredth." ("St. Bees" is also used.) Around 1960 the popular folk-revival tunes of "Froggie Went a-Courtin'" and/or "The Crawdad Song" began to take over.

Pseudo-industrial sound effects were also added.

Some years bacl I suggested that "BGW" was closely related to a popular Victorian music-hall ditty of the 1830s called "The Steam Arm." Since then, Patrick Spedding and Paul Watt's anthology of "Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period" bears out the theory: several comic songs on similar themes were produced in quick succession. Unfortunately, no text of "BGW" seems to have survived from much before WWII.

The existence of bawdy songs in the 1830s called "The Steam Tool" and "The Steam Jock" in the same meter *and the same nearly unique aaaa rhyme scheme* demonstrates the relationship.

Exactly when "BGW" as we know it was created remains unclear: but the circumstantial evidence (too complicated to go into here) shows that it was almost certainly no later than around 1900. (The words, by the way, rarely varied until the 1960s, when various additions began to get tacked on)

Thanks for the replies. There's always something more to say and new to learn. (Most of these threads on "what song X means to me" quickly fall flat: what is it about "BGW" I wonder? Don't answer.)

RoyH, were the texts and tunes of the other songs you mention pretty much the usual?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 08:26 AM

Re: tune. The one I knew had little resemblance to Froggie's Courting - have tried to sing it to that but the rhythm didn't feel right. The one I know is a slowish, quite stately air, somewhat hymn-like, which SFAIK is one peculiar to the song rather than a re-use or reworking of any other.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 06:57 AM

I don't know where you got your information, but that's not how it goes. It goes like this:

A woman told me before she died
And I've no reason to think she lied
That her husband had a dick so small,
That she couldn't feel the damned thing at all

So he built her a tool of steel,
Driven by a bloody great wheel,
Balls of brass he filled with cream,
And the whole fucking issue was driven by steam.

When she saw it she drew back in fright
Then off to her sister's she fled for the night
She can't say what happened as she wasn't there
But when she got back there was shit everywhere!

She retched as mopped up his vile remains
Here an eye, there a toe, a bit of his brains
Ah, the poor man, even so what luck!
A lousy inventor and an even worse fuck!

So there.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 06:00 AM

Ah! I've just found the song about the gentleman with the large balls on here! (He was a juggler of course.) Good old Mudcat!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 05:45 AM

I remember BGW at Uni donkey's years ago, along with many other similar songs, some mentioned here. I adored the Wild West Show, and must have heard literally dozens of verses. (I also particularly liked a song about a gentleman who seemed to have "...large balls, twice as heavy as lead..." who, "...with a singular twist of his muscular wrist, he threw them over his head, tarara boom..." etc. Anyone know that one? If so, I'd be grateful for the rest of the words which I've forgotten!)
As to the original post, I thought BGW was deliciously funny when I was young and naive, and it was sung by rather juvenile and very drunk lads who roared it out. I don't think one can 'analyse' it for sadism, cruelty, disrespect to women etc. In its day, in the context of men, booze and general merriment, it was just a young lads' rude song. The students I heard singing it were not in the least cruel or disrespectful to women, they were perfectly normal and nice to have as a boyfriend. Dirty/rude songs have their place, and are often witty and funny as well as rude. Just don't sing them in the vicar's hearing!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 05:38 AM

The tune is Froggie Went a Courting.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 05:12 AM

My recollection of this, based on many hearings during my 7 years millitary service, is of a recitation rather than a song. I'd like to hear it sung. What's the tune like?
I also heard 'The Crabfish' for the first time whilst in the army, and by my time of demob had heard 'McCafferty', Young Soldier Cut Down', D Day Dodgers, The Screw Gun,and 'Wild Colonial Boy'. It was hearing McCafferty and Dodgers sung by an old Battery Sgt Major that led me to search for British folk songs. Before that my interest in country music and Blues made me think that all folk music came from America. Therefore, in a roundabout sort of way I have my service days, beginning in 1951, to thank for my life in folk music. I started as a professional in 1964, so next year will be my 50th anniversary. They have been wonderful years, and I look forward to many more.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Uke
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 01:54 AM

Yeah, Cleveland also mentions the song being a variation on "The Sorceror's Apprentice" tale.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 01:29 AM

Oh, indeed. It's a fine exemplar of the Frankenstein/Golem/RUR motif, the invention or creation that can't be controlled.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Uke
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 12:41 AM

The meaning of this extreme song would probably vary according to the social context in which it was sung. For instance, in his book "Dark Laughter" (1994), a unexpurgated study of military folksong, Les Cleveland explains that soldiers like himself perhaps found some symbolic resonance when singing "The Great Big Wheel":

"This sadomasochistic parable of a death machine devouring its individual victims is paralleled collectively on the battlefield by the larger spectacle of a whole civilization caught up in the murderous complexities of military technology." (p.28)


I think Gershon Legman makes a similar point, that the song can be read as a protest against industrial civilization - an inhuman techno-Moloch that "f***s people up".

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Jun 13 - 11:54 PM

In the version I learned back in 1947 or so, there were no "bitter bits"
"But here my story must lag a bit
There was no way of stopping it"

The sailor built the machine, but it was to help a frustrated woman.
There was no indication of misogynism, nor of controlling women, nor of sadism (except, possibly, on the part of the singer.

I'm not sure why the death of Charlotte, the Harlot is any less repulsive.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jun 13 - 11:49 PM

the biter (is) bit (British old-fashioned) ···

someone who has caused harm to other people in the past has now been hurt - 'It's a case of the biter bit. After years of breaking girls' hearts, he finally fell for someone who didn't love him.'

                                             The Free Dictionary

Subject: RE: Origins: 'The Bloody Great Wheel'
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Jun 13 - 08:42 PM

I think the emphasis on the putatively misogynistic engineer may be uncalled for. He is missing in both versions that I heard & supplied to Lighter in correspondence (the one at Putney School, VT, in 1953, and the one at St Andrews University, Scotland, in 1958); there, the source of the story is "a sailor", and he takes no part in it; the "maid" builds the machine herself. Her foolishness in not providing a method of stopping it echoes that of the Sorceror's Apprentice & his descendents in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. No doubt her being made a lustful woman reflects the war of the sexes, but so do many other things.

In both, also, it is "the bitter bit", not "the biter bit"; I had not heard of the latter useful phrase until Lighter mentioned it in his essay. I think "bitter" suits the context better.