Lyr Req: Musselburgh Fair and Musselburgh Field

Subject: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 10:38 PM

I am confused about two songs.

Musselburgh Fair and Musselburgh Field.

I did ask about these two when I was a guest. Now that I have membership status I will ask again and see what happens.

From what I can determine they are very different songs (one English and one Scottish) I am interested in the Scottish version

Does anyone know if the tune for the following lyrics is similar to "The Lachlan Tigers" tune? MUSSELBURGH FIELD On the tenth day of December, And the fourth yeere of King Edwards raigne, Att Musleboorrowe, as I remember, Two goodly hosts there mett on a plaine All that night they camped there, Soe did the Scotts, both stout and stubborne; But, "Welladay," it was their song, For we haue taken them in their owne turne.

The site aussie folk songs url=http://www.chepd.mq.edu.au/boomerang/songnet/053.html states that Musselburgh Fair (not field) has the same tune. Are Musselburgh Field and Musselburgh Fair the same song?

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hI aLL,

Now that I am a member again. . . I will revive one of my unsuccessful requests.

Mark here: Does anyone know the words and chords for AL lloyds Musselburgh Fair?

Apparently the tune for Lachlan Tigers is the same as Musselburgh Fair. It'd be nice to be able to put the two sets of lyrics together. Can anyone help??? A band called Jack the Lad did a song called something like Tinker Taylor Knickerbocker Lineman which was partly sung in Welsh. It had the same tune as Lachlan Tigers. I heard them at the 97 Woodford Festival in Australia. Cocky's Joy from Bathurst Australia did a version of Lachlan Tigers that is damned good. The Bushwackers do a version of Lachlan Tigers too. It is not a powerful as Cocky's Joy's version (and that is really saying something).

The Lachlan River begins in the hills behind Goulburn in NSW Australia. It then flows into Wyalgala Dam (where it joins with the Abercrombie River). It then flows through places like Cowra (and I think Forbes) and then into the Macquarie.

The amount of shearers along the length of that river would be huge. There are still a lot of Lachlan Tigers. I understand that Musselburgh Fair is a day of horse races (Trotting - Pacers - Harness Racing). It is interesting to think of how a song about a race day in Edinburgh (I think) was adapted for a song about shearers in central west NSW Australia. I found the link between Musselburgh Fair and Lachlan Tigers on another web site.

The same tune is used for 'The Station Cook' and 'The Great Northern Line' one of Sally Sloane's songs. The tune is from the Scottish song 'Musselburgh Fair'. From the singing of A.L.Lloyd.

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Click here (Musselburgh Field) and Here (Musselburgh Fair) for related threads.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 10:49 PM

I don't know, but M. Field is listed in the DT as being "from Child", so perhaps Lesley (the Contemplator) would know.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 11:02 PM

"Musselburgh Field" is Child Ballad #172, which is one of the few Child Ballads Lesley does not have at http://www.childballads.com. Even Child just has the one version (Child 173, "Mary Hamilton," has 17 versions, if I counted right). The Traditional Ballad Index (click) notes only the one entry in Child Ballads, and does not have entries for the song in any other book, which is unusual. No tune noted in any work I could find.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: sian, west wales
Date: 24 Aug 00 - 05:49 AM

The Welsh song you mention is Bachgen Bach o Dincar (The Little Tinker Lad) - Welsh verses and a nonsense chorus. It's published in a least one of the Welsh Folk Song Society's collections, although it's generally accepted as not being of Welsh origins. I know I have it at home. I'll take a look ... Seems to me I've also heard that tune used for a Canadian folk song - a logging camp song, I think...

sian

oh. I've also stayed a couple of nights in the Presbyterian training college in Musselburgh. Never knew that Prebyttons threw such good parties ...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 12:39 AM

sian, west wales Please Please if you have "Bachgen Bach o Dincar" words tune chords history (all or some) I would much appreciate a copy.

Tursacan , my band combine "The Lachlan Tigers" (Australian shearing "belter") with Bachgen Bach o Dincar because we heard a band called "Jack the Lad" perform " "Bachgen Bach o Dincar" at the Woodford Folk Festival in 1996. My partner recongised the melody.

It would be very interesting to compare your "Bachgen" to "Jack the Lads/Tursacans".

Thanks

Subject: "Bachgen Bach o Dincar"
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 28 Aug 00 - 10:12 PM

Does anyone have the words and tune for "Bachgen Bach o Dincar"?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: sian, west wales
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:15 AM

Sorry, ... lost the books but just found them today. How do I get them to you?

sian

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: BACHGEN BACH O DINCAR ^^
From: sian, west wales
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 08:29 AM

Well, I've got a bit of time left on my lunch hour so ... here are the notes on Bachgen Bach o Dincar from "Canu'r Cymru: Detholiad o Ganeuon Gwerin (Welsh Folk Songs) 1984", ed. Phyllis Kinney a Meredydd Evans, ISBN 0 900426 58 6.

They're in Welsh, so I'll do a quick translation (ie. could do better ...)

************* This was learned by ear by Meredydd Evans from Ifan O. Williams, BBC Wales, who had it from an old man of Penmaenmawr, Caernarfonshire, in preparation for a radio series on old songs aroung the end of the 1940s. A variation on the amazing chorus appears in the autobiography of J. Lloyd Williams ... A significant point to note is that the man who sang it to J.Lloyd Williams testified that this was precisely how he learned the piece in school, so this example is among the best of how a little Welsh (speaking ie. monoglot) boy in a rural school picked up, by ear, a language which was foreign to him, but in which he received all his formal education. It's quite probable that "The Knickerbocker Line"** was the English song which he was expected to learn, and it is this chorus, 'Welshified', which the old man from Penmaenmawr also knew. Perhaps he, also, learned it in school. Be that as it may, this song of the little tinker uses the tune of the Knickerbocker Line chorus. It's a tune that roamed far. There are at least two versions of it in Australia.

The Welsh version, without the chorus, appears in Wyth Gan Werin (Enid Parry, 1949) and it reports that it was noted by 'Enid Parry from the singing of Mrs. Jane Parry, Carmel, Caernarfon'. Two other verses were added to the first traditional verse. The first verse only appears in Hwiangerddi Cymru, W.S. Gwynn Williams 1944.

The melody is in the dorian mode.

** published in Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, ed. Peter Kennedy (Cassell, London, 1975) - FBI:707

******************

Meredydd is a friend of mine, so I might be able to find out more...

The reference to the boy learning it in the 'foreign' English refers to the 'tradition' of teaching only in English even when the children were monoglot Welsh. Thereby hangs a tale into which I will not go.

The words (if I get the line break right ...)

BACHGEN BACH O DINCAR

Bachgen bach o dincar yn crwydro'r hyd y wlad,
Cario'i dwls a'i dacla, gwneud ei waith yn rhad,
Yn ei law roedd haearn ac ar ei gefn roedd bocs,
Pwt o getyn yn ei geg, a than ei drwyn roedd locs:

Potsiar a peipar a twigar owns agen,
Ddy potsiar o ddy peipar o ddy nicarbocar lein;
La di da di da di, hoc it on ddy tshen,
Ddy potsiar o ddy peipar o ddy nicarbocar lein.

Roughly translated ...

The little tinker man wandering through the country
Carrying his tools and tackle, working cheaply
In his hand is his iron and on his back, his box
A stump of a pipe in his mouth, and a moustache under his nose.

Then the chorus is nonsense ...

Can't do some of the accented vowels on this either...

So, what do I do about the melody? (Don't suggest anything too technical !!! argh!!!)

Sian

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X:1
T:Bachgen bach o dincar
M:2/4
K:C
A2A2A2A2|A4A2A2|G2AGG2E2|C8|G2G2G2G2|G4G4|D2E2F2G2|A8|A2A2A2A2|A2A2d4|
c2B2A2B2|c4F2E2|F2E2F2G2|A4A4|G2F2E2E2|D8|A4A2A2|A4A2A2|G2A2G2E2|C6C2|
G2G2G2G2|G2G2G2G2|D2E2F2G2|A8|A2A2A2A2|A4d4|c2B2A2B2|c6c2|F2E2F2G2|A2A2A2A2|G2F2E2E2|D8|]

from Canu'r Cymru - Detholiad o Ganeuon Gwerin (Welsh Folk Songs), eds: Phyllis Kinney a Meredydd Evans, pub. Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin Cymru 1984, ISBN 0 900426 58 6 ^^

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:28 AM

Thank you very much sian. The lyrics are much appreciated.

Does the nonsense chorus vary? Is Welsh nonsense different to Australian nonsense?

My partner and I will go through the lyrics tonight and she will be able to compare our "folked" version and the above version.

As for the melody??? This is where you will need to turn the sound into MP3 or midi info or abc text (ie: software)

There are some threads about such processes but I am quite unfamiliar with the process as applied to Mudcat. Can anyone else suggest the best approach. I will go for a search on the best approach. Maybe a new thread is in order.

I will stay in touch, Sian.

Thanks.

Whatever the

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:43 AM

Sian,

Mark here. . .

Would you be able to scan the music and email me.

Do you know how to send a personal Mudcat message?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:45 AM

Are scanned tunes any use to Mudcat database?

It would be best if the tune was deposited in Mudcat.

Anyone have any ideas??

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:51 AM

Is Meredydd Evans a Mudcatter?

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Nope - Evans is editor of a songbook listed above.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 12:54 AM

Hi, Mark - it's best if it's in some sort of digital/playable format, like MIDI, ABC, or NoteWorthy - you can e-mail them to me and I'll make sure they're taken care of. If it's a scanned image, you can e-mail it to me and I'll transcribe it. If it's MP3 or RealPlayer or other audio file, send me an e-mail (not the file), and I'll find a transcriber you can e-mail it to.
There are more complicated ways that bypass me and take some of the burden off me, but this is a simple answer that should keep things straight.
My e-mail address is always available at Mudcat Resources.

-Joe Offer (click to e-mail)-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 02:42 AM

Thanks Joe.

I willl improve my mudcat literacy and internet music literacy as time goes by. Thanks very much for your assistance. I have "harvested" many tunes and much information in researching for my band's next CD and live repertoire update. Perhaps posting some of the results of my work may be somewhat of a payback.

Sian. I hope you are still out there too.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: sian, west wales
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:18 AM

Oh, good. Someone else doesn't know how to do the techie things. Whew.

So, if I scanned the page in the book, I could send it to ... Joe? That much I can manage (I think). I guess my next project is to get someone to teach me about MIDI files in case this sort of thing crops up again.

No, Mered isn't a Mudcatter - he's 81 and claims to be a Luddite of the first water. His wife, and co-editor, Phyllis, is 79 and thinks technology is hot stuff. (She's also currently writing the first English-language history of Welsh folk music since 1935 - stuck on the 19th century I think...) Anyway, I shall get up to see them in the next couple of months and shall get Phyl onto Mudcat... If they don't know stuff, no-one does.

sian

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:26 AM

Yep, Sian, you can e-mail it to me if you like, or if you can find some other noble soul to transcribe it to MIDI or Noteworthy format. We prefer songs that are transcribed into digital notation (MIDI, ABC, Noteworthy), but we'll get somebody else to transcribe them if we have to.
-Joe Offer (click to e-mail)-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: sian, west wales
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 04:34 AM

Oops. Forgot to respond to the nonsense comment. Not to be confused with nonsensical comment, of which there are none in this thread. Barring this bit of course.

Anyway, I don't know if the nonsense choruses in the two versions differ, but I'll see if the J.Lloyd Williams book is in the college library here. (It's one of those texts all us amateur folk historians are supposed to read ... ) It wouldn't surprise me if they were different. If you and I both learned a ... Yiddish? ... song by ear on separate occasions and happened to meet up 20 years later, I imagine the versions would be vastly different. And anyone who spoke Yiddish would be rolled up in a corner laughing themselves sick.

Welsh is *completely* phonetic, once you learn the rules, so you can see where the nonsense comes from ... sort of. I'd think it's something like,

Poacher, Piper,
(twigar owns again stumps me - thinking of the railway connection: stoke her once again?),
the Poacher and the Piper on the Knickerbocker Line. La di da di da di
Hock it (?) on the chain
The Poacher and the Piper on the Knickerbocker Line.

But I guess that's easily checked by referring to the Peter Kennedy book. Guess that better go on my Christmas list...

sian

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Marcus Campus Bellorum
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 06:26 AM

Thanks Sian

All this coming together quite well.

Which J.Lloyd Williams book?

And the Peter Kennedy book?

Tell me (us) more.

And thanks very much for your patience.

And I look forward to hearing from Mrs Phyllis Evans.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 04:25 AM

G'day,
Thanks to Joe the tune for "Bachgen bach o dincar" can be found here at the Mudcat MIDI site.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: THE KNICKERBOCKER LINE ^^
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 05:39 AM

G'day Sian,

You will have to keep wishing for the Peter Kennedy book next Christmas, but this is probably pretty close to the version in his book. We published this in Singabout in 1962 – next to the Australian song The Great Northern Line, which I posted recently. The interesting thing is that The Great Northern Line has, as its chorus:

Watch him, pipe him twig him how he goes,

With his little team of bullocks he cuts no dirty shows;

He's one of the flash young carriers that on the road do shine,

With his little team of bullocks on the Great Northern Line.


which leads me to ask if some other version of The Knickerbocker Line has the line, in its chorus: "Watch her, pipe her twig her how she goes,
and this is what Duke Tritton's song is based upon. Of course this could explain where the "twigar" in your Welsh song Bachgen bach o dincar came from.

BTW: I had a listen to the MIDI of Bachgen bach o dincar and it is yet another variant on this group of tunes.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

THE KNICKERBOCKER LINE
Reprinted in Singabout #4, v. 4, p6 from English Dance and Song (Coll. Peter Kennedy - from Stanley Slade the Bristol Shanteyman). Sally Sloane sang a version to John Meredith.

My love she is a tailoress - a tailoress by trade
And many a fancy waistcoat for me my love has made,
She gets up in the morning and stitches away till nine
Then her high-heeled boots go clattering down the Knickerbocker line.

Chorus:
Watch her, trail her, pipe her as she goes
High heeled boots - and patent leather toes,
That she was one of those flash-girls I soon found out in time
When her high-heeled boots went clattering down the Knickerbocker line.

When first I saw this pretty girl in High Street she did dwell,
She really took my breath away - she was such a swell
She'd a dandy hat with feathers and couldn't she cut a shine
When her high-heeled boots went clattering down that Knickerbocker line.

I took my love to London - to the Theatre we did go,
To see them all a-staring at her - you'd think she was the show.
Comin' out she stopped me - And partickiller asked the time
Then skiddaddled with my ticker down the Knickerbocker line.

When I found my ticker gone - I raised a hue and cry,
I called out to a Bobby - there was one standin' by.
He says to her - Now come with me - and marched her off so fine
It's three months you must shuffle off this 'ere Knickerbocker Line.

The tune, as printed in English Dance and Song

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Click to play

To play or display ABC tunes, try concertina.net

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ABC format:

X:1
T:The Knickerbocker Line
M:6/8
Q:1/4=180
K:C
F5G|A2AA2A|A2AA2A|G2AG2E|C5E|G2GG2G|G3G2E|
D2EF2G|A5E|D2EF2G|Ad4c|^A^A^A^A2A|G3F2G|A2AA2D|
A2AA2G|F2DE2C|D37/8||

Singabout #4, v.4, p6, 1962

^^

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: sian, west wales
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 06:18 AM

Bob!

I'm not around much the next couple of weeks ... but THANKS for that! I'm gonna take a good look at it at some point!

Sian

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 11 Sep 00 - 10:53 PM

G'day Sian,

Don't worry ... I'm not around for the next few weeks either - there's these bloody Olympics to avoid!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 00 - 10:25 PM

Bless you, Bob Bolton! Knickerbocker Line is very close to the song I've been looking for, the one that goes with this tune. I'm sure I heard it at the chantey sing in San Francisco Saturday night. I'll fire off personal messages to Chanteyranger and Radriano - one of them will surely know.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: The Bigler's Crew - Knickerbocker Line
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Sep 00 - 01:37 PM

Thanks to Radriano, I've finally found the song I was thinking of. It's The Bigler's Crew. I heard it on a CD from Lee Murdock, Great Lakes folksinger extraordinaire. I don't suppose there are many of you who are familiar with Great Lakes sea chanteys, huh?
Thanks, Richard. I feel much better now.
Thanks also to Bob Bolton, who gave the key that led in the right direction.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 06:10 AM

G'day Joe and all,

Returned to a Sydney remarkably little scarred by the Olympic experience, I am back to the mysterious ways of Mudcat and musical connectivity. (I called in on Mark Campbell and his partner Alison when Patricia and I went through Canberra on our way south and west.)

Anyway, I was looking at the words of The Cruise of the Bigler and a distant echo kept bouncing round in the far side of my skull ... I could hear the voice of Sam Larner, the wonderful old herring fisherman in Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and Peggy Seeger's Radio Ballad Singing the Fishing... At first just the words " ... Great Grims-by ..." ... then "... a passage from the Dogger Bank - to Great Grims-by ...".

I had to check, so I got the new CD of Singing the Fishing and shuffled through. Sure enough, there was just a first verse:

Oh, sailing over the Dogger Bank, wasn't it a treat,
The wind a'blowing both east nor' east, so we had to give our (?) sheet.
You ought to see us rally (relly?), the wind a'blowing free,
A passage from the Dogger Bank, to Great Grimsby.

The Dogger bank is nor'west of Grimsby and a major fishing ground for the herring. I think it is named for a Dutch type of fishing vessel, the dogger (~).

All this adds another thread to the rich tapestry of this particular tune. We have at least five songs in Australia to this one and it seems well established among seafolk (if we stretch things to the Great Lakes). The tone of the Bigler had the right nautical tone to winkle this one from the back of my memory.

I will have to see if The Dogger Bank appears in a collection somewhere. I could not see it (under that title, anyway) in the DT.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DOGGER BANK^^
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 08:59 AM

Songs of England gives a set of  The Dogger Bank, with midi, though unfortunately it doesn't name any source:

THE DOGGER BANK

Sailing over the Dogger Bank,
Wasn't it a treat?
The wind a-blowing 'bout east-nor'east,
So we had to give her sheet;
You ought to see us rally,
The wind a-blowing free,
On passage from the Dogger Bank
To Great Grimsby.

Chorus:

So watch her, trigger,
The proper ju-ber-ju,
Give her sheet and let her rip,
We're the boys to pull her through,
You ought to have seen us rally,
The wind a-blowing free,
On passage from the Dogger Bank
To Great Grimsby.

Now our captain he's a shang-a-roosh,
He likes a drop of good ale,
Our mate he's a roadstone-prat-inspector,
He's been seen in many a goal;
Our third hand he's a bushranger,
He come on deck and received the mail,
And you give a look at our old cook,
He's so hoppity wild.

Now we are the boys to make a noise
When we come home from sea,
We get right drunk and roll on the floor
And cause a jubilee;
We get right drunk and full of beer,
We roll all over the floor,
And when our rent it is all spent,
We'll go to sea for more

Sam Larner's version is on the recently re-released Now is the Time for Fishing (Topic TSCD511); a soundclip of the first verse and chorus may be found at Musical Traditions, here:  Reviews: Sam Larner

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Oct 00 - 10:47 PM

G'day Malcolm,

Thanks for that. The first verse certainly looks like Sam's (give or take a few dodgy grabs at Sam's words in my transcription) but it may come from someone else. It is certainly from right in Sam's territory, so he would have known a 'standard' sort of version.

The chorus is interesting for a number of reasons ... the relation to The Cruise of the Bigler is quite clear - and the word "trigger" lines up with the "twig her" in 'Duke' tritton's Great Northern Line and the "twigar" in Sián's Bach Bachgen Dincar.

My understanding is that to "twig" is a London cant word for 'look at' (in an admiring or mocking sense).

I will have to look for the Topic CD ... unfortunately, Jill Gartrell of Sandstock Records, our best local importer of such CDs has just 'retired to her farm'.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 10:49 PM

G'day again Mark et al,

Looking over the whole thread and links ... the one thing we have not found is the alleged Scots song of the same tune Musselburgh Fair that Lloyd cites. Hmmm!

Lloyd was not too forthcoming on any of his provenance - in a letter to Australian collector John Meredith he admitted that he had done no "collecting" as such in Australia when he was out here as a young lad. he went on to say that his great contribution to the Australian genre was his interpretion of Lachlan Tigers, based on his memories of how it was done when he was out here between the World Wars.

A careful comparison of his text with that collected by Dr Percy Jones (or passed on to him by the columnist/later author Bill Wannan) shows near identity, except for a bit of polishing up, filling in 2 lines and a switch to Lloyd's more "working class" phraseology. Lloyd has made a strong and popular song from the collected text but his reticence on sources has always been further muddied by those (particularly Victorians) who have tried to use him to refute the solid work of Meredith in the 1950s.

They clearly resented the fact that this was mostly conducted in NSW - because John did not own a car or even drive. (40 pound tape recorders are no fun on a bicycle - heading over the Great Divide!) Evidence shows that the mobility of Australians means that most song is fairly common to all regions, but the Victorians liked to proclaim their preference for "The Lloyd Version" ... even though that would have been from NSW as well (If it had existed)!

Regards,

Bob bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 11:02 PM

G'day again Malcolm,

Do you have any background information on the terms used in the Bigler song? There are a few that I can't really fathom:

"...our captain he's a shang-a-roosh,"
... ?

"Our mate he's a roadstone-prat-inspector,"
As "prat" is standard English for buttocks (as in 'pratfall'), I'm not surprised "He's been seen in many a goal;"!

"Our third hand he's a bushranger,"
Well, we Australians know what we mean by a "bushranger", but what did it mean to Sam Larner? (Unless "He come on deck and received the mail," means he was inclined to pinch anything worthwhile in the crews' mail.)

This group of songs, clustered around the one tune, is a very interesting area.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Oct 00 - 05:37 PM

No idea at all, I'm afraid!

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Dec 00 - 04:15 AM

Thanks, Susanne (and Malcolm), that was one of the songs on 'Singing the fishing' I had not identified yet.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 26 May 02 - 11:31 PM

Just revisited this after about 18 months.

It turned out to be curly one.

What a mine of info though.

Really great stuff.

I here there's a band called Tursacan who do a good verions of Bachgen Bach, Knickerbocker, Lachlan Tigers in the one song with didge, cello, guitar, flute, and kit percussion.

I also hear they may have a CD out soon!

Mark ;-}

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GRIMSBY FISHERMAN'S SONG
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 May 02 - 10:59 AM

A year and a half on, I can add some more to the Dogger Bank part of this discussion.

The uncredited text I quoted above is indeed Sam Larner's, though it has On passage where he sang A passage, and He's for He is in the final line of verse 2. The only significant difference is that it omits Sam's final chorus:

So watch her and twig her, the porra-per-ay she goes,
High heels, painted toes, Jinny is all the go;
She is one of the flash girls, doesn't she cut a shine?
She can do the double shuffle on the Knickerbocker Line.

This from Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, The Singing Island, 1960. Sam apparently learned the song around 1890. For more on the chorus, see The Knickerbocker Line, above.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy (Yellowbelly Ballads, part 1, 1975) gives a composite of Sam's tune with a text which appeared "in the correspondence columns of Lincolnshire Life, vol.XI, number 4 (1971) page 48; the contributor, P. Courley, having found it in Travels at Home (where it appeared without a tune) published by the Great Central Railway circa 1904. In the latter publication, the song was said to have been composed by a blind fisherman-fiddler. There were further verses, which the writer in Travels at Home could not recall".

This early set from print illuminates a few points in Sam's version.

THE GRIMSBY FISHERMAN'S SONG

We're rearum tearum fishermen, we come from Grimsby town,
And in the "Lion" and "Kitchen" we've had many an up and down,
But when our stocker's all spent, and we've had a jolly good spree,
Why, then we crack aboard of a smack for to plough the stormy sea.

Chorus:

Crying, watch us, twig us, we're a popular jubyju!
Give her sheet and let her rip, we're the boys to pull her through.
You ought to have seen her running when the winds were blowing free
In our passage from the fishing grounds to Great Grimsby!

Our skipper he's a Shanghai Rooster, he likes a glass of good ale.
Our second edition, a Ribstone pippin, was born inside of a jail.
Our third hand, he's a bushranger, our decky comes from the Dials.
Our dirty old cook, you can tell from his look, he comes from the African wilds.

Now when we get our trip aboard, for Grimsby town we steer,
And all that we have in our heads, my boys, it is Mrs. Sturgeon's beer.
We crack on all the canvas and we battle through every gale,
Until the Spurn is left astern, and then we take in sail.

From O'Shaughnessy's notes:

"The Lion and Hell's Kitchen were notorious Grimsby taverns. Stocker means stock of cash, funds.
A juberju is defined in the annotations to The Cruise of the Bigler as the jib boom, the raffee yard, the crosstree, upon which sailors at times climbed to ride the halyards down to the deck when hoisting sail.
A Ribstone pippin is a Yorkshire apple. The Dials means Seven Dials, a London area and formerly a very disreputable one.
Mrs Sturgeon was a well-known Grimsby innkeeper."

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: IanC
Date: 27 May 02 - 11:21 AM

BobB

Far as I know, "twig" is current East Anglian for "to see" or "to notice". Don't know about London.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 12:28 PM

Did we ever get a tune for this?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 12:30 PM

Dogger Bank I mean

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 12:31 PM

Which bit? The Sam Larner set?

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 01:26 PM

Cross-posted. I'll add Sam's tune when I have a moment.

Meanwhile, someone has unhelpfully revived another, later thread that was started unnecessarily in the first place, and the discussion is now split with that.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: nutty
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 02:04 PM

I didn't see that you had revived this thread .....sorry
Perhaps all related threads could be connected.

If the tune is the same as the Knickerbocker line the ABC has already been posted.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: The Two Musselburgh Songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 04:33 PM

You weren't the culprit, and I think that MMario was reminded by it to get this one out again. Although the tune is essentially the same, each variant differs, and I think that the right form of the tune should go with the relevant set of words. I'll add an abc when I have time (unless someone else has notation of Sam's singing) but it won't be today. Well done finding that broadside, by the way; I missed it last time the subject came up.

Said broadside is transcribed (though with some of the idiosyncratic typography regularised) at thread From Dogger Bank to grey [sic] Grimsby

The midi I linked to above (over three years ago now) may still be there, but the text transcription was a bit inaccurate and uncredited, so I don't know that I'd trust those people necessarily to have done the tune properly.

Subject: RE: lyr: Musselburgh Fair and Musselburgh Field
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 12:59 PM

There are two songs in the Digital Tradition that supposedly use the same tune, Light on Cape May and The Bigler's Crew. The Digital Tradition has MIDI files for both, but they both seem wrong.

Are they legitimate tunes for these songs?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: www.mudcat.org #category or Satellite Radio Receivers
From: GUEST,Flo ( Rifle Scopes ) Fennel
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 01:18 PM

Anyone need help with marketing (or just understanding!) Microphones or Headsets by any chance?

Been made resundant and seeing if I can make a life online from home :)

Flo