Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury (Old Blind Dogs

Subject: Pills of White Mercury, Old Blind Dogs
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:19 PM

Hello All,

Can anyone help with this? I keep getting tied up with the million other versions of Bang The Drum Slowly that I'm lost with this one. Probably really simple too.

Don

Subject: Lyr Add: PILLS OF WHITE MERCURY (Old Blind Dogs)
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:28 PM

I can get ya lyrics mate... that help?

As I was a walking by the banks o' the Ugie,
Come my dear friends and this story I'll relate:
I spied a dear comrade all dressed in white flannel,
Dressed in white flannel and cruel was his fate.

The mercury was beating. The limestone was reeking.
His tongue all inflamed/in flames hung over his chin.
A hole in his bosom, his teeth were a-closin'.
Bad luck to the girl that had gi'ed him the ______.

CHORUS: And had she but told me, oh, when she dishonored me,
Had she but told me of it in time,
I might have been cured by those pills of white mercury.
Now I am a young man cut down in my prime.

My parents they warned me and oftimes they chided:
With those young flash girls do not sport and play.
I never listened, no word ever heeded.
I just carried on in my own wicked way. CHORUS

It's down on the corner two flash girls were talking.
One to the other did whisper and say:
There goes that young man who once was so jolly,
But now for his sins his own body must pay. CHORUS

Oh doctor, dear doctor, before your departure,
Take all these bottles of mercury away,
And send for the minister to say a prayer over me,
So they can lay my poor body in the clay. CHORUS

Now get you six fellows to carry my coffin,
Six pretty fair maids to bear up my pall.
Give each of them there a bunch of red roses,
So when they pass by me they'll not know the smell. CHORUS

;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 11:32 PM

Thanks Clinton, thats a start. :-)

Don

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:13 AM

Hi, Clinton - where'd you get those lyrics?
-Joe, trying to document sources for DT-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:24 AM

Joe, they are directly from the Old Blind Dogs CD. I have them at home too.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:26 AM

Actually I copied and pasted them from the mb at the OBD web site... but I guess that whoever posted 'em there took 'em from the cd liner...

;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 04:48 PM

More HERE

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:04 PM

Also see The Unfortunate Rake in the Digital Tradition. Who woulda thunk this song was so old? Is the tune the same as "Streets of Laredo"?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:09 PM

The same set is also in the DT, for that matter, though no source is named:  PILLS OF WHITE MERCURY

See also  Pills of White Mercury

It's come up in a number of past discussions.  What nobody has got round to telling us yet is whether or not the liner notes reveal where they got it...

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:36 PM

I don't think so, Malcolm. I got the loan of 'Tall Tails' once and didn't copy any notes for the song, which I'm sure I would have done had a source been mentioned.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE YOUNG GIRL CUT DOWN IN HER PRIME
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 06:44 PM

There's a girlie version ("THE YOUNG GIRL CUT DOWN IN HER PRIME") as the last song in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. I can't remember where I got this particular girlie version from because I've been singing it for so long, but it has pills of white mercury too:

As I was a-walking one midsummer's morning,
As I was a-walking one morning in May,
Well, who should I spy but my own daughter Mary
All wrapped up in woollens on a hot summer's day.

Oh mother, oh mother, come sit you down by me.
Sit you down by me, and pity my case.
It's of a young officer lately deserted.
See how he has left me in shame and disgrace.

Oh daughter, oh daughter, why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't you tell me? We'd have taken it in time.
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury,
But now I'm a young girl cut down in my prime.

Oh doctor, oh doctor, come wash up your bottles.
Wash up your bottles and wipe them quite dry.
My head it is aching. My poor heart is breaking,
And I in a deep solemn fashion must die.

Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin,
Six pretty fair maids to follow my pall,
Give to each pretty fair maid a jug of brown ale,
Saying, "There go the bones of a true-hearted girl."

Come rattle your drums and play your fifes lowly.
Merrily play the dead marches along,
And over my coffin throw handfuls of laurels,
Saying, "There goes a true-hearted girl to her home".

Kitty

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 3-Oct-02.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 07:37 PM

The Penguin set was posted here a year back, as were all the songs from the Penguin book.  I added a list of most of the the relevant references in the DT and Forum at the time, together with some at other sites:  Penguin: The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 08:04 PM

If you type LAREDS* into the Digitrad Lyric Search box, you will get at least 20 versions of Streets of Laredo/Young ??? Cut Down In His/Her Prime/etc right here in the DT database .

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: GUEST,Wayne Bean
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 12:44 PM

The STD in question that is left blank in the lyric above is the "Glyn":

"Bad luck to the girlie that gave him the glyn"

As I understand, this is Scots for syphilis.

There is a dynamite rendition on "Half Ower, Half Ower tae Aberdour, Traditions Bearers Records, LTCD1006 by Jack Beck.

The tune is also the one to "The Road to Dundee" another Scots song. Streets of Laredo is a direct derivitive.

Wayne Bean

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Pills of White Mercury, Old B
From: Willa
Date: 09 Jan 02 - 07:08 PM

herga Kitty; the version you posted is , with minor variations, the one sung by Norma Waterson onTopic CD (TSCD507, A True-Hearted Girl), a re-issue of a 1977 recording

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords: Pills of White Mercury, Old Blind Dogs
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Apr 05 - 01:06 PM

Here's what Ian Benzie wrote in the liner notes ("Tall Tails", Lochshore, 1994):

"I learned the song from the singing of Peter Hall of the Gaugers who performed it at the Aberdeen Folk Club several years ago."

Cheers,
Michael