Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)

Subject: Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)
From: GUEST,Julia
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 04:14 PM

I have the EFDSS "A Century of Song" CD with Harry Cox singing The Pretty Ploughboy and it's the greatest but I can't understand all the words. Any clues as to where I'd find them? (I think I checked the big books last time I was home.) Any help is much appreciated.
Julia

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 04:54 PM

I'm not sure of Cox's set - but there are versions in lots of the usual books : Ord, Songs of the People, several of Roy Palmers, and Purslow's "Foggy Dew", book.


Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 06:04 PM

There's a set of words, info and some links HERE

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 10:03 PM

Thanks, those links fill in the gaps nicely
-j

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PRETTY PLOUGHBOY (Harry Cox)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 11:48 PM

THE PRETTY PLOUGHBOY

(Harry Cox, Catfield, Norfolk. Recorded by Charles Parker and Ewan MacColl, mid-1960s)

It's of a brisk young ploughboy; he was ploughing on the plain,
And his horses stood down in yonder shade.
It was down in yonder grove,
He went whistling to his plough,
And by chance there he met a pretty maid, pretty maid,
And by chance there he met a pretty maid.

So the song that he sang as they walked along,
"Pretty maid, oh, you are of high degree.
If I should fall in love and your parents they should prove,
Oh, the next thing they would send me to the sea, to the sea,
And the next thing they would send me to the sea."

So when her aged parents they came for to know
That her love he was ploughing on the plain,
They sent for the pressgang and pressed her love away.
And they sent him to the wars to be slain, to be slain,
And they sent him to the wars to be slain.

So she dressed herself up all in that's her best
And her pockets had been well lined with gold.
You should see her trudge the streets with a tear all in her eye.
She was searching for her jolly sailor bold, sailor bold.
She was searching for her jolly sailor bold.

So the first that she met was a jolly sailor bold.
"Have you seen my pretty ploughing boy?" she cried.
"He's just across the deep and he's sailing for the fleet."
And he said, "My pretty maid, will you ride, will you ride?"
And he said, "My pretty maid, will you ride?"

So she sailed until she came to the ship her love was in
And unto the Captain did complain.
She said, "I'm come in search for my pretty ploughing boy,
Who was sent to the wars to be slain, to be slain,
Who was sent to the wars to be slain."

So five hundred bright guineas she then did lay down,
And so freely she told them all o'er,
Until she got her pretty ploughboy all in her arms,
And she hugged him till she got him safe on shore, safe on shore.
And she hugged him till she got him safe on shore.

She set those bells to ring and so sweetly she did sing,
Just because she'd saved the lad that she adore, she adore,
Just because she'd saved the lad that she adore.


The above is quoted from the insert with Harry Cox: The Bonny Labouring Boy: Traditional Songs & Tunes from a Norfolk Farm Worker (Topic TSCD 512D, 2000). This recording was made some 30 years after that on A Century of Song, and doubtless differs in some particulars.


Roud 186 Laws M24

There are a good few broadside examples at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

The Pretty Ploughboy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Pretty Ploughboy (Harry Cox)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 03:55 PM

Imogen Holst and Ursula Vaughan Williams, Ed., 1961, "A Yacre of Land," "Sixteen Folk-Songs from the Manuscript Collection of Ralph Vaughan Williams," has a shortened 5-verse version of "The Pretty Ploughboy," with music, p. 16, as sung by Mr. Pottipher, Essex, 1904. Oxford Univ. Press.