Versions: So Be Easy and Free When You're Drinkin'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Feb 17 - 07:27 AM

Is it obvious that the tune for "Ned of the Hill" is Irish? I can't find any more reliable source than Grattan Flood to back that up.

It might well be, but it doesn't sound much different from many other tunes of the period which are known to be English or Scottish.

---

Looks like this thread is a Spam Magnet. I'm going to close it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 08 Feb 17 - 06:55 AM

In Ireland it's known as 'A Man You Don't Meet Every day' Scots tend to call it 'Jock Stewart' And their are various tales re it's origin on line. Great Audience Chorus song

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Helen
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 02:13 PM

Hi all,

I never realised until I bought a 5 CD set of The Pogues albums that the tune for Jock Stewart is the old Irish tune called Ned of the Hill. The Pogues do a version called Young Ned of the Hill on their Peace and Love album. There is a song called I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day on their Rum Sodomy and the Lash album which is just an alternative title for Jock Stewart.

The tune is here:

O'Neill's Music of Ireland - a wonderful resource, by the way. I have the O'Neill's book and on that webpage I can also hear the midi files of the tunes as written in the book and copy the sheet music into other documents etc.

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 11:13 AM

And Seamus, chord formatting often goes to pot on here! Best to put the chords in brackets before the word to which the chord change pertains: then they can't move!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 11:11 AM

Was going to say the same. It occurs in "Ye Jacobites by name", the subject of another current thread, Robert Burns poem, written late 18th century. "A weak arm and a strang, for to draw".
Also in the song, The Nightingale. "They both sat down together, for to hear the nightingale sing".
Really quite common, and not specifically Irish.

Back on the song, a number of versions mentioning various rivers that he went out by, Tay, Spey, Kildare.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 09:40 AM

"For to shoot" is a typical Irish construction

It's much more widespread than that.

Wiktionary citations

Seems to have peaked (in print, anyway) around 1815:

Ngram since 1800

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 09:38 AM

I entered the chords correctly above the lyrics, but they appear to have gotten jumbled in the transmission.. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 09:36 AM

The version I do on my recent CD, Ireland's 32, Vol. 2.

A MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY
(Collected by John Ward)
       G          D            G            C
I've a neat little cabin that's built out of mud,
          G          D         G/D7
Near the Curragh in County Kildare.
         G       D            G          C
I've an acre of land where I grow my own spuds;
       G            D          G
I've enough, and a little to share.
       Em                     Bm
Sure, I've not come over here seeking your jobs,
    C            Am       D7
But just a short visit to pay;
       G         D                G          C            
So be easy and free when you're drinking with me,
       G       D                G                        
I'm a man you don't meet every day.

             G            D          G               C
Chorus: Come fill up your glass, and drink what you please,
         G       D          G/D7
And whatever the damage I'll pay.
       G       D                G          C
So be easy and free when you're drinking with me,
       G       D               G
I'm a man you don't meet every day.


When I landed in Liverpool, O what a sight

Met my gaze as I lit on the shore;

There was Mickey McCollum and young Dinny White,
               
Michael Lane and big Rory O' Moore.
            
And they all burst out laughing when they saw me walk down,
               
But they treated me in a fine way;
   
Says I "You young spalpeens, I'll stand you a round,
      
I'm a man you don't meet every day."

Chorus:

         
And there on that quayside not three days ago,
      
We went for a drink in the Star,
            
And the first man I met was oul' Pat McEnroe,
            
With a pint of best ale at the bar.
   
I spoke to him kindly, shook him by the hand,
                  
And these words unto him I did say,
         
"Be easy and free when you're drinking with me,
      
I'm a man you don't meet every day."

Chorus:

                  
There's a neat little colleen who lives around here,
               
And it's her I've come over to see;
         
Next Saturday morning I'll marry my dear;
                     
Then she'll come back to Ireland with me.
      
And if you come over a twelve month from now,
      
It's this I will venture to say,
                  
We will have a smart lad, and he'll say of his dad:
            
"He's a man you don't meet every day."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 09:10 PM

As Fat B-asterisk has pointed out in one of the older posts,
the Pogues covered this song on Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.
It came out ever so slightly different than the title of this thread. Instead of
"So be easy and free when you're..."

Cait O'Riordan sang
"So be easy and free when ye dhrink up wi' me..."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 07:59 PM

The 'for' is also a normal construction in Hiberno-English, though less often used now, as I said up there ^^

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: JHW
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 02:30 PM

Dog, Gun and "for to shoot" as they appear in a couple of lines were discussed a bit back.

A poet or lyricist often upends grammatical rules or tradition to fit the words to the line.
I took out my dog and my gun for to shoot all along the green banks of the Spey-ey-ey-ey.
The rhythm goes bumpity bumpity bumpity... The "for" has to be there to maintain the rhythm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 08:29 AM

Am I missing something here, what the feck have the last 2 posts got to do with this song ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Snuffy
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 06:42 AM

The "for to shoot" construction is (was?) also commonly used in Northern English dialects.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 05:56 AM

Here it is in a Budget speech by the late Brian Lenihan: There will be 15,000 placements provided for to support unemployed. (This was the man who famously said of Celtic Tiger Ireland before the crash that "We all partied", generously adjoining the poor and struggling to the shenanigans of the rich.

I was hoping to find the construction in one of D'Unbelievables' shows, but no luck, though they'd probably be incomprehensible to Americans anyway.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 05:36 AM

When the late Sheila Stewart sang a Ripoponden Folk Club many years ago
she introduced this song saying, ' I'll sing you my grandfaithers song now '

Dave H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 05:17 AM

"For to shoot" is a typical Irish construction, common to the Irish language "chun + verb" and the French language "pour + verb". It's not used much any more, as Irish constructions are sandpapered away by US and British TV usages.

I'm going out for to teach later…

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: BobKnight
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 05:13 AM

Bugger!! I don't know what happened, but essentially all the words are there. Alec Stewart was my mother's cousin by the way.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: BobKnight
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 05:10 AM

First things first, Jock stewart was not Belle's father, he was the father of Alec, her husband. Belle's maiden name was McGregor.
Jock Stewart
Now my name is Jock Stewart,
I'm a canny gaun man,
And a roving young fellow I've been.

Chorus:
So be easy and free,
When you're drinkin' wi' me,
I'm a man you don't meet every day.
Chorus

I'm a roving young blade,                                                                I'm a piper by trade,                                                                And mony's the tune I can play

Chorus
I have acres of land,
I have men at command,
I have always a shilling to spare.

Chorus
Now, I took out my gun,
With my dog for to shoot,
All long by the banks of the Tay.

Chorus
So, come fill up your glasses,
Of brandy and wine,
And whatever the cost, I will pay.

Chorus                                                                                                                                     Repeat first verse and chorus

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Feb 17 - 03:24 AM

I've been trying to find words for Jock Stewart so I can sing it tonight in memory of Alan White (The Wail, Middle Bar Singers). The more I read, the more I think that the folk process has been well at work on this one. A lot ofthe words I've found sound as though people have just repeated what they THINK they hear and it's got further and further away from the original. The Pogues version with the shooting of the dog doesn't make sense at all for instance. I think I'll just do what an awful lot of other people appear to have done and sing it the way that seems most sense to me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,GUEST BETSY
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 07:29 PM

May I suggest Gorn = going , so basically in English , is a an easy- going man . Canny meaning loads of things relating to good .
"How's it going ?" - canny and yerself ??

Cheers Betsy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 01:44 PM

What a great example of the folk process at work.
1. canny gaun man (canny meaning pleasant in Scotland, and gaun being the present participle of gae)
2. canny, gaunt man (nearest thing in standard English, where canny suggests shrewdness, and gaunt suggests a frail old man)
3. cagey old man

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 01:07 PM

I'm shocked at the racial stereotyping implied in bubblyrat's skepticism that a Traveller could own real estate or hold a managerial position.

But, political correctness aside, the lyrics only have him claiming that lofty status. The song would still work if he was lying, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 11:08 AM

"Gorn" is not a word I can find in any dictionary. Chambers does however give "gaun" as a Scottish form of "going". A "canny-going" man would make good sense; so I think that would probably be the correct spelling for this rendering of the line.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 09:01 AM

A canny GORN man... so there's a Star Trek version?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: bubblyrat
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 07:17 AM

So many versions !! I have "I'm a canny GORN man" as taught to me by a lady in Germany ; I have difficulty with relating to the line about having Acres/ houses/land and "Men at command" if Jock Stewart was a "traveller" as stated or suggested (obviously) in Sheala Stewart's obit.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 22 Dec 14 - 01:13 AM

Oh, my name is McCann. I'm a canny, gaunt man,
though a dashing young rover I've been.
I've had acres of land. I've had ships at command.
And I'm happy to call you my friend.
So come fill up your glass with whiskey or wine.
And whatever the price, I will pay.
And be easy and free while you're drinking with me.
I'm a man you won't meet every day.

And it's oft have I strolled, till the morning bells tolled,
singing songs with a bottle and a friend.
So get up off your knee and come strolling with me,
and together we'll sing without end.
Let us catch well the hours and the minutes that fly.
Let us share them so long as we may.
And be easy and free while you're singing with me.
I'm a man you won't meet every day.

By the light of the moon and an old fiddler's tune
that I'll sing with a cry and a shout
if you'll count one two three and come step out with me,
and we'll dance till the stars all burn out.
Then leap high in the air and come down with a twirl.
Never think what people may say.
And be easy and free while you're dancing with me.
I'm a man you won't meet every day.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 14 - 12:39 PM

Stewart = tinker/traveller
Stuart = Royal

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 07:09 PM

My happiest recollection of this song - is when meeting (in the bogs of the Heathmount pub in Inverness ) the fabulous Iain McGillray. Whilst we were draining our bladders we struck up this song . I did the harmony and the bog itself was fully tiled so the sound bounced all over the place - and neither of us being sober to any degree , so , you (collectively ) naturally think you're great !!!
I don't know the derivation of the song - but Iain had me convinced it was Scottish - no matter.
"Oh me name is Jock Stuart (Stewart) I'm a canny young man...... " It just bounced off the bog walls and ceiling as we were enjoying a piss together .Happy Days

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 05:39 PM

I collected a version from Dorset Traditional singer Bill House in 1984. his dad George sang it as well, but the Hammond brothers only took 8 songs from him in 1906.
There were a number of Scots regiments posted around Weymouth in the 1860's and it explains the numerous scots songs found in the west country. Take a look at 'Marrowbones' again with that in mind, fascinating.
My recordings are on line at the British Library.
seasons greetings
Nick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: BrendanB
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 02:32 PM

Just read an obituary for Sheila Stewart. This stated that her great grandfather was the piper 'Big' Jimmy Stewart who was beaten to death by Irish labours for refusing to play a request. (Nice). It also says that her grandfather was Jock Stewart about whom the song was written. The obituary can be found in the 'register' section of The Times for Saturday 20 December.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 14 - 12:11 PM

interesting

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:30 AM

hi there lots of lyric been composed about my family of stewart's and there ways of life that wance was,words and things of the past that truley was, its strange how people can compose these lyrics into ballads, my family of travelling stewarts i come off , my two great grand uncles one is jock stewart from the moss o burrledale out side Inverurie in 1924, and the other jock stewart is the piper to the 7th duke of atholl, also he was the same man in the song (the canny gane man) the first time I heard that song getting sung it was Billy Key he was in my house in Kemnay doing some recordings for the Radoi, he was asking me if I ever had heard that ward to that song and he asked me if I knew that jock stewart he was singing, I said yes its my great grand uncle jock stewart, Sheala Stewart from Blair, its her Grandfather, your singing about,see jock and his two brothers,piper Duncan stewart, William, was my two great grandfather's the other brother's was David,and his brothers was piper Donald,and also Sandy,all good pipers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 09:38 PM

Belle Stewart Obituary  (Sheila Douglas, 1997).

Belle's daughters, Sheila and Cathie, continue the family tradition.

Have a look at these two reviews at  Musical Traditions:

Sheila Stewart: From the Heart of the Tradition
Sheila Stewart: Time goes on ... and time goes on ...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 06:24 PM

Zander, Belle Stewart is not in fact "very much alive and still singing". Belle died three years ago, leaving an irreplaceable void in the Scottish folk scene.

Murray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: fat B****rd
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 02:29 PM

Try The Pogues "Rum Sodomy and the Lash" LP (LP ??) there's a sinister version on there sung by their then bass player Caitlin, who became Mrs. Elvis Costello fB

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 11:10 AM

Four American traditional versions (two published) all differ considerably from the early text (and from each other). One who sent a text to Robert Gordon in the 1920s said everyone was singing it in 1890 (Gordon Manuscript transcripts, Library of Congress). That's not good evidence for the date of the song, but I haven't seen any other date for it, so it will have to do at present.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 08:44 AM

G'day Zander,

About 20 posts above this, The Shambles, in the first reply, posted a link called (and presumably to a version of) Jock Stewart. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the link to work on either computer that I use for Mudcat!

That said, the old Irish versions are not about Jock Stewart - they are about Irish emigrant workers. This is folk music ...How old are they? ... How old is the Jock Stewart version? (Interestingly, the song usually goes to a tune generally thought of as Irish ... but where does a good tune come from?)

BTW: I just checked the Digital Tradition database above and it has a version of Jock Stewart ... and this message at the end:

The song is an Irish narrative ballad that has been shortened to an Aberdeenshire drinking song. It is essentially Jeannie Robertson's version, slightly modified by Archie Fisher in the third verse so the dog doesn't get shot. It is alternatively claimed by the Singing Stewarts to have been written for Bell's father.

I have been looking closely at the various versions of Man you don't Meet Every Day and they are diffuse. Any simple answer (particularly in folk music) should be suspected on first principles.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: zander (inactive)
Date: 15 Dec 00 - 04:42 AM

A man You dont meet every day is actually a Scottish song called ' Jock Stewart ' who was a real person. His great, great granddaughter the traditional singer Belle Stewart is very much alive and still singing. I saw her a few years ago at Ripponden folk club near Halifax and she was absolutely brilliant. Dave

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 10:14 PM

G'day again,

Whoops!

I forgot the breaks!

A Man You Don't Meet every Day

I've a nice little cottage, all made out mud,
On the border of County Kildare;
I've an acre of ground and I grow my own spuds,
I've plenty - and a little to spare.
So drink up your fill when you're drinking with me,
Whatever the damage; I'll pay;
So be easy and free, when you're drinking with me;
I'm a man you don't meet every day.

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: Lyr Add: A MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 10:11 PM

G'day all,

Dan (aka Liam's Brother: I was looking around a few years back for a version of A Man You Don't Meet every Day to sing with a nice Australian-collected waltz, obviously related to My Home is on the Cold, Cold ground and A Man You Don't Meet every Day. I did see Stan Hugill's song, but found it difficult to sing from an Australian perspective (notice how many stanzas to get past the Bay of Biscay - and how few out here!).

I found a little 1-stanza compressed version of this (collected in south-east Queensland, from Alan Offa, of Toowoomba (who turned out to be an uncle of my old friend Eva Gaddes). this seems to get a complete story across in a remarkably short time ... in contrast to all those long English farmers' songs detailing everything they grew and everything that they do with them on their self-sufficient farms.

This was just enough for me to work on the difficult task of singing along with my own buttion accordion playing. Being an old mouth-organ player, I suffer from Mouth-Organist's Syndrome - compulsive huffing & puffing in concert with the accordion's bellows ... not very good for the singing style! I needed something I never played on harmonica to cut out that connection and a good tune to keep the mechanics of playing out of the other side of my brain. (Alan actually sang this to another tune, but it does belong with something very like the tune I now use.)

Regards,

Bob Bolton

A MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY

I've a nice little cottage, all made out mud,
On the border of County Kildare;
I've an acre of ground and I grow my own spuds,
I've plenty - and a little to spare.
So drink up your fill when you're drinking with me,
Whatever the damage; I'll pay;
So be easy and free, when you're drinking with me;
I'm a man you don't meet every day.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 25-Jul-02.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: mousethief
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 12:08 PM

And here I had thought ZEUGMA was a comic-book action hero.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: radriano
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 11:50 AM

The melody shown for "Bound to Australia" in Stan Hugill's Shanties of the Seven Seas is very close to "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 10:43 AM

The broadside Bruce refers to (and which is very close to the version quoted by Dan) may be seen here:  I'm a man you don't meet every day  Printer and date are unknown.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 14 Dec 00 - 12:30 AM

On some thread here I noted before that the song could be found on the Bodley Ballads website.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: GUEST,Jimmy
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 11:42 PM

The use of "I took out my gun and my dog for a shoot" is an example of a figure of speech called ZEUGMA where one verb modifies two or more nouns. The expanded expression would read "I took out my gun and (I took out) my dog for a shoot"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 09:58 PM

WEll, the tune I heard it to back in the dark (McCarthy era) ages was My Lodging Is In the Cold Ground (Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: kendall
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 09:46 PM

Is there an echo in here?

Subject: Lyr Add: THE MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 05:56 PM

I have heard, many years ago, mind you...

"I took out my gun with my dog I did run
All down by the River Kildare..."

You might also like this from a 19th century Irish-American songster...

THE MAN YOU DON'T MEET EVERY DAY

I've a nice little cabin that's built with mud,
In the beautiful county Kildare;
I've acres of land and men at command,
And I've always a shilling to spare.
Och! I didn't come here boys to look for a job,
But just a short visit to pay;
And as I walk through the streets people say that I meet,
"There's a man you don't meet every day."

Then call for your glasses, have just what you want,
And whatever the damage I'll pay;
Bhoys, be airy and free when you're drinking wid me,
For I'm the man you don't meet every day.

When I landed in Glasgow, what a sight met my eyes,
As first I put my foot on the shore;
There was Felix O'Donough, blind Barney McGurk,
And around 2 or 3 dozen more.
Och! murther! you ought to have seen them all stare,
And then they did all run away;
Says I, "My spanpeens, do you think I'm a ghost
Because I'm a man you don't meet every day?"

I'm in love with a nice little girl in the town,
And we're going to be married today;
And if you come over a twelvemonth from now,
A right welcome to you I will pay;
And I think I can show you a little spaleen,
Who then will be able to say
To my friends and companions, while pointing me out,
"There's a man you don't meet every day."

All the best,
Dan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 05:55 PM

I just read the title of this thread correctly. I had been reading it as "It's so easy to be free" -- I even read the posts in here a couple of hours ago, and thought that the song said "It's so easy to be free when you're drinking with me."

Gotta have my frontal lobe alignment done again.

Alex

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Be Easy and Free When You're. . .
From: Greyeyes
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 05:22 PM

I think I have heard a version "With my dog and my gun I went oot, hares to shoot"