Origin: Cosher Bailey

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:18 AM

My impression (or theory) is that most of the '60s rugby repertoire dates back to 1939-45.

And in some cases, of course, earlier.

(A few established WW2 items, like the scabrous version of "Brian O'Lynn," have dropped out of circulation.)

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Brian Peters
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:33 AM

"Was you ever see..."

Is it possible this is an English invention intended to parody South Welsh patois, like "Look you, Boyo"?

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:54 AM

Almost certainly, I should say, Brian. Ewan, in "The Shuttle and Cage", gives "Did you ever see...?" But, as I said in my last post, it's a long-established way of singing it.

≈M≈

Ewan MacColl recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSk7Po1sVF8

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:04 PM

also very plausible. Look see which the Munmuth lass insisted was THE construct not look you. And very telling is the look that Worcestershire (Worcester/Malvern) locals would use & which I have come across in the Eastcombe region of Stroud from an old lad I recorded. see Godfrey Jellyman of Brownshill, Stroud although I seem to have edited the look out. I will try to find it again. and re-instate it.

But it is all grist to the mill that we call the Folk Process

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Brian Peters
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:08 PM

I never heard 'look you' or 'boyo' in Merthyr. 'Boy bach', yes.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST,Bill the sound
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 01:41 PM

I always thought the tune came from an old Welsh folk song
Claddu'r mochen du (burial of the black pig _

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST,Celia
Date: 09 Feb 16 - 06:13 PM

i've got a cousin Mike
He rides a motorbike
He can ride around the Gower
In a quarter of an hour

With fond memories of my university rugby team!!

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 16 - 06:42 AM

"And he had a Cousin Willie
Who played soccer for Caerphilly
When he started playing rugger
He looked such a silly billy"

Is there a technical term for the action in the last line above, i.e. when you put in a different word to the one expected (as in "billy" instead of the expected "bugger")? Although one thinks of "euphemism" or "double entendre", I think these are subtly different.

Whatever this technique is called, I occasionally use it in some of my own (very amateur) songs, e.g.

I met a girl on a Tuesday night, her hair was coloured black
I'd heard from all the men in town, she was good in the ...dance hall

The dots indicate a slight pause before "dancehall" (the audience is presumably expecting to hear "sack" at the end of the 2nd line).

I always think think it is funnier if the rude word is not actually spoken or sung. I wonder is this a very British thing, or does it occur in other English-speaking countries, or indeed elsewhere in Europe or even further afield?

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 16 - 08:11 AM

"Cosher" Bailey was supposed to be an engine driver, but the name suggest he was a the "Tough (or Bad) Cop" part of a Tough Cop/Soft Cop duo. As Gene Hunt might have said "We let him off with a Coshing"

These days it's probably Soft Cop/Softer Cop.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Apr 16 - 05:37 PM

Songs that are full of avoidances of expected rhymes are sometimes called "tease songs". However, since most verses of "Cosher Bailey" are not of that character, I suppose one could call the ones that are, "tease verses".

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 22 - 10:57 AM

Now the bees on the Gower
They just flit from flower to flower
But the bees in Llangollen
They don’t care about the pollen.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Aug 22 - 12:12 PM

There's a much fuller discussion on this, and Hob-y-deri-dando provided by Abbey Sale already on Mudcat: Here

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Aug 22 - 02:12 PM

With my collection of BBC songbooks from schools broadcasts I thought I'd add the versions there (for those who remember learning them in school)

From Singing Together Spring 1977 & Autumn 1984 both the same set of lyrics:

COSHER BAILEY
Trad

Cosher Bailey had an engine,
It was always needing mending,
And according to her power,
She could do four miles an Hour.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

On the night run up from Gower
She went twenty miles an hour;
As she whistled through the station
Man, she frightened half the nation.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Cosher bought her second-hand,
And he paint her up so grand,
When the driver went to oil her
Man, she nearly burst her boiler.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Now Cosher Bailey he did die,
And they put him in a coffin
But one night they heard some knocking,
Cosher Bailey only joking.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?


The song was also used in 'Music Time' The Big Balloon Show Summer 1979, but with slight differences in the first verses, and two verses replacing the fourth verse:

COSHER BAILEY
Trad

Cosher Bailey had an engine,
It was always wanting mending,
And according to her power,
She could do four miles an Hour.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

On the night run up from Gower
She went twenty miles an hour;
As she whistled through the station
Man, she frightened half the nation.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Cosher bought her second-hand,
And he paint her up so grand,
But when he went to oil her
Man, she nearly burst her boiler.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Oh, the sight it was heart-rending!
Cosher drove his little engine
At full speed into the tunnel
And he shot right up the funnel.
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Now poor Cosher lies in plaster,
His old engine met disaster
When he filled her up with water
She went faster than she oughta!
Did you ever see, did you ever see
Did you ever see such a funny thing before?

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 22 - 03:47 PM

About "look you."

Oxford shows that "look you," "look ye," and "look thou" were all quite current between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with some continued use into the nineteenth. It wasn't restricted to Wales. "Look ye" is the only survival, and Oxford deems it "regional" or "archaic," which means you'll rarely hear it. "Look ye" is limited to "Welsh English, esp. in stereotypical representations."

OTOH, the reduced form "Looky (here)!" still survives in the U.S., but mainly as a huckster's or carnival barker's expression.

Just now I heard an advertising jingle that goes,

"Looky, looky, looky!
Here comes Cookie!
Cook's Pest Control!"

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 23 Aug 22 - 03:31 AM

Crawshay Bailey from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawshay_Bailey

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Aug 22 - 10:34 AM

Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (1930) [passage app. written in May, 1915]:

“[A very young Welsh soldier] appealed to me as an arbiter. ‘You’ve been to college, sir, haven’t you?’ I said, yes, I had, but so had Crawshay Bailey’s brother Norwich.’ This was held to be a wonderfully witty answer. Crawshay Bailey is one of the idiotic songs of Wales. (Crawshay Bailey himself ‘had an engine and he couldn't make it go,’ and all his relations in the song had similar shortcomings. Crawshay Bailey's brother Norwich, for instance, was fond of oatmeal porridge, and was sent to Cardiff college, for to get a bit of knowledge.) After that I had no trouble with the platoon at all.”

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST,PB
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 04:51 AM

Cosher (Crawshay) Bailey really did have an engine, and it probably looked something like this. That sort of design was obsolete even when it was new in 1832, but they kept making whole fleets of these in South Wales for years afterwards. Stubbornness, parochialism, building cost... it didn't matter that they were massively inefficient, the coal was effectively free. You might notice that in the drawing the wheels don't seem to sit on the rails. This isn't a mistake, on most of the South Wales lines the rails were flanged and the wheels plain, an engineering error- rails are stronger when you have the load- bearing element vertical- that lasted from the 1780s to the 1830s for new builds and up to the 1920s in service.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: GUEST,Roger.
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 04:00 PM

My Dad, Hadyn, was the second of four brothers' Glyn, Dad, Harold and David.
All coal miners from the village of Resolfen in the Neath valley.
Dad was born in 1906 and along with the others decided to join up in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, (we're not going down those bloody mines again), at the time of the General Strike.
All four of them served through WW2 and came out the other side.
When I knew them in the 1950's they used to sing Cosher Bailey when they'd had the odd beer or two. So no doubt the song had travelled the world with them and people like them.
I can remember singing and hearing it in all sorts of unlikely places when I was in the Merchant Navy.
Its just the good old folk process.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 09:02 PM

From 7 years ago: Mrrzy, Brand's 1960 book prints the line as "To sing praises of sweet little Jane," thus solving the problem of pronunciation.

My problem is how he pronounces it on the record, which I still hear as shelly coch coyne. I believe whoever said it is Welsh for Sweet little Jane. But Brand does not sing Sweet little Jane...

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 10:53 AM

Mrrzy:
From the linked thread: Here
Siani fach fwyn. (pronununciation: Shan-ee vach voyn both 'a's are short as in cap/hat, ch is gutteral as in loch, or J S Bach)

From second half of that post giving the 'traditional' words to Hob-y-deri-dando.

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Aug 22 - 12:37 PM

Brand sings "Shonny fock foin."

Subject: RE: Origin: Cosher Bailey
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Sep 22 - 07:21 PM

Thanks y'all!