Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one

Subject: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,Leslie Butler
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 02:52 AM

Sean Canon has a nice lyrical tune to a version of the Wild Rover that goes (chorus)

Wild rover no more, wild rover no more
And I never never shall play the wild rover no more.

Anyone got all the words? And the melody, for that matter as I only partly remember it. A pointer to an appropriate CD will help
Thanks in advance

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: DG&D Dave
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 03:28 AM

I heard the version, I think you're refering to with a slightly different chorus:

Wild roving I'll give-over, Wild roving I'll give-o're
And it's ne're will I play the wild rover no more.

The verses are exactly the same as the God-Awful 'No! Nae! Never!' version, and the tune is much more lilting.

Dave.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 03:35 AM

Sean recorded that on his first (I think it was), The Roving Journey Man (Cottage Records, Cot 411, 1977); I don't know if it has ever been re-issued. He said he got it from Donal McGuire. The Scottish band Kentigern recorded a similar set a couple of years later (Kentigern, Topic 12TS394, 1979), in their case learned from "Glasgow fiddler Willie Beaton".

A text much like Sean's was posted here five years ago, at THE WILD ROVER; in that case from Gerry Cullen, who had it from Mary-Ann Carolan. The song is closer in that form to the way it used to be sung before either the Clanceys or the Dubliners -I forget which- learned Sam Larner's Norfolk set from Ewan MacColl, and recorded it as a speeded-up drinking song, starting its decent into a (financially rewarding) but crass football-chant.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 05:24 AM

Malcolm

Luke Kelly of the Dubliners, via Ewan mcColl, as far as I know.
Regards
p.s. As part of their Irish Studies course, I give an illustrated talk on Irish Song to the non-Irish students in the college where I work. I start off with the Dubliners version - which they all recognise. By the end of the talk they're not surprised to find that far from being an Irish drinking song, its a non-Irish non-drinking song!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 05:29 AM

In fact it's a temperance song, if you ever listen to the words.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 06:28 AM

Yes, McGrath - my point exactly.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,Leslie Butler
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 09:07 AM

Thanks, all!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: radriano
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 11:50 AM

Leslie, if you want the melody to the alternate version of "Wild Rover" I'll be happy to send you a cd of it. I used to sing that version with my former band. A few years ago I put together a cd of excerpts of live concert performances we did.

Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a Christmas present.

Radriano

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: nutty
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 02:38 PM

If anyone is interested ....
a very different (Scottish?) version is shown on this Bodleian Broadside

Click Here

Unfortunately no date is given.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 04:52 PM

Yes, that is a different twist to the usual story. There are a number of broadside editions at the Bodleian Library, with some variation between them; most have a chorus and the earliest dated examples are of the first part of the nineteenth century:

Wild Rover

It was also printed in American songsters of the mid C19, and seems to have been found in tradition mainly in England and Australia, but also in Canada, the USA, Scotland and Ireland. Number 1173 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It has been suggested that it may have been based on The Green Bed; I don't know about that, but it's certainly the case that there were a good few songs made using the same basic motifs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 05:57 PM

My late and lamented band, Cyderman's Fancy, released a version of this song on cassette about 20 years ago. It was what we laughingly call "my big hit" because there was a radio station in Fresno, California that got hold of the tape and gave it significant airplay -- but outside of Fresno, nobody ever heard it.

The song was was in minor and rather slow -- but, I hasten to add, this was before converting things to minor and doing them slowly was trendy, so it was ok. I quite liked it, actually.

(Did your lot learn your version from us, Radriano? Or is it a different one?)

I learned it from a breathtakingly beautiful Kentigern recording of it (on an eponymous LP from, I think, 1976).

Claire

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: radriano
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 07:11 PM

The version of "Wild Rover" I sing comes from a private tape made by a friend of mine at a concert at the Cecil Sharp House in England back in, I think, the late 1970s. There is no infomation given on the cassette but I'm pretty sure the singer was Sean Corcoran.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice o
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 07:39 PM

Andy Turner of the quintessentially English band Magpie Lane sings a most beautiful version of The Wild Rover. He says he put off learning the song for years so that he could always reply truthfully to requests at sessions that he didn't know it, Then he found this version. I don't know his source, but I should imagine the Bodleian since the band is based in Oxford.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 04:47 AM

Radriano

Very likely that it was Sean Corcoran - he collected it from Mrs. Carolan. Was also a member of the Press Gang, of course.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Mallaidh
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 12:28 PM

Yes, yes, yes, all very interesting but where can I get a full set of the words. Pleeeeze!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Little Robyn
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 01:31 PM

Just click on any of those blue clickies from Malcolm Douglas - I've just been reading lots of slightly different words that are in the Bodleian. Fascinating!
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 01:33 AM

what's the matter with these people. haven't they heard the Clover margarine advert - don't they know how it goes?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice o
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 04:26 AM

What is the one with the chorus that goes

Wild Rover give over
Wild Rover no more
And I never will play the Wild Rover no more.

I have the tune in my head to those few words but can't remember any more of it.
Giok

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 04:45 AM

There's a version on the Dransfield's "Lord of All I Behold."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Wild Rover - not that one, the nice one
From: Windsinger
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 10:07 AM

Aww, the "other" one IS nice. :)

Especially if Seamus does it.

Slán,

~Fionn

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