Lyr Req: Willy 'Ole Lad (Keith Marsden)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'Ole Lad (Keith Marsden)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 05 Feb 20 - 06:20 PM

A fair few of Keith Marsden's songs are performed up on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+%28Keith+Marsden%29

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'Ole Lad (Keith Marsden)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 20 - 08:08 PM

A little Knowledge.....The Willey oil was the space below the willey where all the crap fell through. hence the willey oil lads job was shovelling out the crap.... and any other job of similar ilk.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy 'Ole Lad (Keith Marsden)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 07 Sep 17 - 04:47 PM

 "...It was the willey-'oil lad's job to trample down the pieces of pulled up rag into these sheets which were full of blend. The rags in the shoddy trade were first torn up by the rag machine where large pieces, still recognisable pieces of cloth or knitwear, were produced. These were then put into the willeyer, a machine which broke the bits down into much smaller pieces which were very fluffy. These were blown through tubes in the 'willey'oil' and sections from different qualities of rags could be mixed in the blowing process. Hence, the name of blend which was applied to the product going into the hessian sheets. Obviously the blown product had a large amount of air in it and the trampling was simply to try and eliminate some of this, and get more blend into each sack (sheet)."
Photograph from the David Atkinson Archive. 1965
http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?resourceIdentifier=2006118_160365 

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: GUEST,count to ten
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 04:10 AM

Canny get chords of of spotify

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: gnomad
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 06:47 PM

"Your mother was always a mender"

Just in case anyone wonders about this, it is a reference to the highly-skilled job still known as "burling and mending" in which newly-woven cloth is inspected for faults by feel and eye, then invisibly corrected. The job is found in the woolen-textiles industry, I don't know of an equivalent in cotton textiles.

Rather a nice picture here to give you an idea.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 12:07 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 11:18 AM

most of cockerdale's music is on Spotify

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: ossonflags
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 04:03 AM

As anyone the chords please?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: Kampervan
Date: 22 May 09 - 08:17 AM

Sorry, that guest posting was coolieless me.
Regards
K/van

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:04 AM

Contents of 'Picking Sooty Blackberries' :-

Bring Us A Barrell    Billy Armitage   Crack Your Whip   When All The World    Ellesmere Port   City Lament   I Remember Morley
Greasy Mac    Vampire (Kipling)    Hessle Road    Old Peculiar
Prospect Providence    Mr Midland    Ten Pints of Tetley    Willy
'Ole Lad   Th Drovers    The Funeral Song    Jack Ashton    St Auban
Sur Mer    Idlers and Skivers    Normandy Orchards    Morley Main
Doing The Manch    Left Left Right Steady Man    Tortoises Always Come Last   and Lucinda .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 09 - 03:21 AM

Well I've got a copy of 'Picking Sooty Blackberries' and, much as I love it, if I thought that it was worth £138.00 then I'd sell it. But I suspect that the price on Amazon is a typo!

It does provide a lot of information though about the background to Keith Marsden's songs, as well as words and music.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: GUEST,Sapper Now waiting at St.Bees
Date: 22 May 09 - 02:07 AM

Does anyone have a list of Keith Marsden's songs?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: Peace
Date: 22 May 09 - 01:58 AM

Buy two, they're small.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs (Willy 'Ole Lad)-Keith Marsden
From: GUEST,Sapper on TRU at Whitehaven
Date: 22 May 09 - 01:48 AM

Just done a Search on "Picking Sooty Blackberries," about time it got reprinted me thinks.
Can find only one copy for sale on Amazon, at £138!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs
From: Catrin
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 06:28 AM

A freind of mine sings this one - I's good to find out all that about the background of it.

I might just print the thread out to show him.

Cheers,

Catrin

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs
From: bill\sables
Date: 03 Aug 00 - 04:42 AM

The song is about Morley, West Yorkshire, and it tells of a father warning his daughter of the dire consequences she can expect if she goes ahead with her plan of marying a young man who works in the Willey 'Ole. The Willey 'Ole was the worst place to work in a mill. It was where the reconstituted rags were blended with oil into a soggy mass which would later be used to make warp threads for shoddy. You could start there at fourteen, but if you were still there two years later the chances were you would work there for the rest of your days.
So the lad this girl wants to marry is in this category. He has worked in the Willey 'Ole for some time and there's no chance of him ever beconing a spinner, overlooker, tuner or some such more skilled job. Indeed he is doubly damned in that not only does he work in the Willey 'Ole but he lives in the "City" area of Morley. This was the singularly inappropriate name given to the very worst slum area.

( This was the introduction by Keith Marsden from the book "Picking Sooty Blackberries" available from Graham Pirt.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs
From: Gervase
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 09:39 AM

Bill,
You're an absolute star - and I will get the recording. Many thanks.
GW

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Clogs
From: bill\sables
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 07:01 AM

Gervase, this song along with all his others are on a CD by Cockersdale called "Picking Sooty Blackberries" It is a double album and sells for £15 and I would recomend it to evryone who likes real folk music and stories. You can get it from Graham Pirt, just send him a personal message. There is a book of Keith's songs as well with the same title also available from Graham Chers Bill

Subject: Lyr Add: WILLY-'OLE LAD (Keith Marsden)
From: bill\sables
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 06:55 AM

WILLY-'OLE LAD
(Keith Marsden)

Oh, Mary, lass, what's this you're doing, and what's this you're getting into?
We're respectable folk and we're Chapel, so yon city lad will not do.
Your mother was always a mender. Your grandma before her was, too.
I started off low but I'm head spinner now, so a Willy-'Ole lad's not for you.

CHORUS: And I dare say he's young now and handsome,
And his eyes are a fine smiling blue,
But he's clogs and he'll always be clogs, lass.
Yon Willy-'Ole lad's not for you.

He'll never have seat to his trousers; he'll never have jam for your bread.
No five pound a week house like ours is, but a back-to-back midden instead.
And one kid a year till you're thirty, then a worn out old woman you'll rue
That you shook your soft head when your old father said, "Yon Willy-'Ole lad's not for you".

When he's forty and fat with the boozing and the women he's had turn away,
When his money on horses he's losing while you've still the rent man to pay,
When it's always your fault with the nagging and the beer makes him nasty and bad,
When you lie there and dread that he'll want you in bed, will you still love your Willy-'Ole lad?

So if you want my consent to wed him, lass, I fear you'll be wanting a while.
If it's him that you meet at the altar, then it won't be my arm down the aisle.
Just cherish your grace for a while, lass, and dream silly dreams while you can.
When you've spent all your youth, you'll have long years for truth, with your lad still a Willy-'Ole man.

Subject: Clogs
From: Gervase
Date: 02 Aug 00 - 05:13 AM

Can anyone help with the words to a song that's been doing me 'ead in these past few days?
I think it's by Keith Marsden, and the chorus goes something like: "I dare say he's young now, and handsome,
And his eyes are a bright smiling blue;
But he's clogs, and he'll always be clogs lass -
Yon Willie the lad's not for you."