Lyr Req: Folksinger's Lament (Dave Diamond)

Subject: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST,Toenails John
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 02:38 PM

This is a song i learned a while ago and then forgot, and now have no idea of the words, having never written them,I can remember most of it, starting off......

Come gather round people here in this throng
I'll sing you a ditty
Both turgid and long
With lines that don't rhyme
And metere thats a little bit wrong
It's not a song i would sing sober

I'm in the mood now to sing it
I've had one or two
So before you stand up and head out to the loo
You can put up with me like i've put up with you
And i'd like you to join in the chourus

Could have sworn i got this song off mudcat originally but no search brings it up. Anyone got the full lyrics to sharpen my memory again.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 02:49 PM

Gosh, I haven't heard this for DECADES!

I probably have the words somewhere but it may take a couple of days to dig them out. Anyone else have them? If not, then I'll start digging.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 02:50 PM

I think it is called The Folksinger's Lamant.

R

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 04:02 PM

Written by David Diamond.It's in digiTrad.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 05:18 PM

John-

Here's a link to a folk-processed version of this song:Click Here!

Enjoy!
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Ferrara
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 09:31 PM

Dave Diamond is a mudcatter. Just sent him an e-mail, maybe he'll post the original version. Can't see many changes in Charlie Noble's version from the way I remember it though.

Dave has a little gem called (I think) the Dave Diamond Songbook with a number of gems including The Bold Consulting Man and The Lifeboat Man. He writes really good stuff.

We used to both be computer types (he still is), and I loved a recitation he wrote that began "In the beginning was the specification, and the specification was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the programmers."

Rita

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 09:42 PM

Thanks, Rita, for e-mailing Dave Diamond. It's many years since I ran across his song, and I still like to sing it at the Folk Club where I meet, but only about once a year!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST,David Diamond
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 10:20 PM

Digitrad has the correct version, it looks like, except for a line which should read
"Such symbols as cuckoos and valleys so deep."

I have not sung it for a while, but I have fallen into the habit of singing "the plot's so complex that it staggers the brain" instead of "the characters' motives ...".
Also
"And after the sex comes some blood and some gore
With murder and stabbings and bodies galore."

I seem to have folk-processed my own song! Have fun, whichever way you sing it.

Needless to say, I'm always happy to hear of or from people singing and enjoying anything I wrote, and think it's fun when it comes back to me after many days and many changes (as "In the beginning" did - it was/is a prose recitation, but someone even made a song out of it.)

Since my songbook was mentioned, anyone who wants a soft copy has only to write me at [e-mail] - it's in Microsoft Word, but I can convert to text if necessary. Alas, not every entry is a masterpiece, and you get to make up your own tunes for any that I didn't steal a trad tune for - but the price is right.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST,Toenails John
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:45 PM

Cheers People. My memory is refreshed Thanking you for the info
Tj

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:56 PM

I love the remark..."I haven't heard that for decades.." *grin*.....must be a treat becoming 'trad' in your lifetime...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST,David Diamond
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:52 PM

I rather enjoyed that thought too - I wrote the 'Lament' in 1984 in the Dickens Inn, in sight of Tower Bridge. We had to wait (a shanty group I was with there) in a pub with no beer (outside licensing hours) between two gigs, the first of which had evaporated at the last minute. So what else was there to do? It was a pretty ragged scrap of paper I wrote it on, too, thugh it did not come from the roll.

I don't know if 20 years qualifies as ages, but now I have picture of myself sitting by some castle fire, combing my silvery locks, tuning my harp, and talking of some great minstrel of the past. "Him!" I would be saying "The varlet stole all my songs".

Perhaps there is a song in there somewhere...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:44 AM

Thanks, David Diamond, for your songbook! It's a hoot!

And I may actually pick up something from it in addition to the "Sing Sober" song, which I definitely will use!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: vectis
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:14 PM

I learned this one in the last year. It still goes down a bomb with folk audiences. Thanks for writing it Dave.
PS We've got one of these comes to our club every week maybe I should sing it for him??

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST,David Diamond
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 12:44 AM

There's one in every club (almost).

I did have a name in mind when I wrote it, but my lips are sealed.

As for singing it to your instance of this dire phenomenon, remember "Home on the Range' where 'never is heard a discouraging word'. And besides, if you were riveted by every singer, when would you use the loo and buy the next round?

(perhaps I missed a couplet there?
If you don't like the sound, then go buy one more round,
When I'm done, there'll be no one who's sober.

Nah - leave well enough alone)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 02:49 PM

no wonder songwriters often forget and confuse their own stuff! They have all the rejected versions still bobbling about in their heads!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 06:54 PM

Shhhh! Don't give away the secret..... or everybody will demand all the 'other versions'.....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:10 AM

I succumbed to the temptation and asked David for his songbook. He sent it almost immediately. Some bloody marvelous stuff in there.

Mr. Diamond, thank you so much. And may I say (succumbing to temptation yet again), "Shine on, you crazy diamond!"

Apologies; you've got to have heard that a few dozen times.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: JohnB
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 11:24 AM

I do the closest remembrance on the night to the version in Digigtrad. As I remember it is about the same vesion as Alistair Brown (Freiends of Fiddlers Green etc.) sang, which is where I got the song. I absoulutely loathe most parodies, HOWEVER, Dave's "Tea Shanty" (also in Digitrad) is brilliant and for some reason goes down well with friends who are total Parody Nazi's. You must be one of my top three in song sources Dave, after Trad and Anon :)
JohnB

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 09:21 PM

Bill D is quite right - my own songs are the hardest to remember! They are hard to leave alone. I'm sure I'm not the only one with that experience.

I didn't know anyone was singing Tea Bags! Great! Though come to think of it, just after I wrote it, Chris Roche sang it in a 'new shanty' contest (Hull?) and it won third prize! Or so he told me.

Thanks for the kind words - makes me want to take up my pen again!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Nancy King
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 11:17 PM

Well, what are you waiting for, Dave? Take up that pen! Your fan club is ready!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:00 AM

Right then! Just one thing I need before I start. Anyone out there got a round tuit?

Thanks, Nancy. I do genuinely feel encouraged - I might even write a cheerful song despite the post election blues - in fact one might be needed, now I come to think of it. (But perhaps we better not get off on that tangent).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: It's not a song i would sing sober?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 10:18 AM

Dave-

That's not something you should compose while you're sober!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble