Lyr Req: Shaking Out the Sheets / Shaking of the..

Subject: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 03:11 PM

Anyone got the music and lyrics for this song? I've just spent the afternoon at the Skipton clogfest (great stuff, if you get a chance to go along to the castle tomorrow, it'll be well worth it) - and the compere sang a song (probably) called Shaking out the Sheets in accompianment to the first set of dancers. Does anyone know it?
Cheers
F

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 03:14 PM

Sorry, forget it - I did search DT, but only by entering the lyrics and hitting search - for some reason it didn't come up - I've just looked under S and it's there - sorry to clog up the airwaves!!! ;-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 03:39 PM

Actually the version I want is the Dance of Death and the music isn't there, so if anyone has it, it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 04:00 PM

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/scores/SHAKSHT2.gif

Google that. The music is there. Correct name is "Shaking OF the Sheets". Hope that's what you want.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 04:45 PM

Two texts in the DT (better to use the search engine than the titles list, usually); one, with tune, from Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, one from a Steeleye Span record. I don't know whether they used the music from Chappell (or another source; there's a tune of that name in Playford, for instance) or made up their own as they sometimes did.

It sounds as if it's the S Span tune you want, though. Who was it who sang the song at Skipton?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 04:48 PM

Midi for the 16th c. version from Chappell in the Mudcat DT (The Shaking of the Sheets (2). Eleven seven-line verses (first has a line repeat), from reference below. Song ID 6959.

Sheet music and lyrics in William Chappell, "Popular Music of the Olden Time," vol, 1, pp. 84-86. "Shaking of the Sheet, or The Dance of Death." The Dover reprint should be in your library.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Peterr
Date: 10 Jul 05 - 09:00 AM

Used to be a standard of The Farriers at Reddith Folk Club in the early seventies. Don't know where Dick Brice got his tune from, but although it was similar to the one later used by SS, his treatment was much darker. It is still guaranteed to stop a song session in it's tracks which is one reason I don't sing it often. I have seen text very similar to the lyrics in a translation of Boccaccio's 'Decameron'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 05:28 PM

Thanks "Peace", but that's not the version I'm looking for. It's this version that was sung at Skipton - (I don't know the name of the person who sang it I'm afraid):
Dance, dance the shaking of the sheets
Dance, dance when you hear the piper
Playing, everyone must dance
The Shaking Of The Sheets with me
Quite possibly SS made up the tune.....
Cheers
F

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: fi_in_nz
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 05:36 PM

Hmmm - apparently the SS version is to the tune "The Black Joke" by Adderbury Morris - so, any Morris Men out there know this tune?
Thanks again.
F

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 08:34 PM

You can find many forms of Black Joke, including the Adderbury set, at  JC's ABC tune finder:

Black Joke

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Little Robyn
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 03:35 PM

If I remember rightly SS play Black Joke at the end of the song (or was it in the middle) but the song itself isn't sung to that tune. It seems likely that they did make it up themselves but they probably won't say.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: Little Robyn
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 03:50 PM

I've just found the words in my songbook but it's time to get ready for work (almost 10 to 8am in NZ) so if no-one else has found it by the time I get home again.......
Cheers,
Robyn

Subject: Lyr Add: SHAKING OF THE SHEETS / DANCE OF DEATH
From: Little Robyn
Date: 13 Jul 05 - 02:38 AM

OK, here it is:

Shaking of the sheets or The Dance of Death
Chorus:
Dance, dance, the shaking of the sheets,
Dance, dance, when you hear the piper playing,
Everyone must dance
The shaking of the sheets with me.

Bring away the beggar, bring away the King,
And everyman in his degree.
Bring away the oldest and the youngest thing,
Come to death and follow me.

Bring away the merchant who made his money in France
And the crafty banker too.
When you hear the piper, you and I must dance
The dance that everyone must do.

Chorus

I'll find you in the courtrooms; I'll find you in the schools,
When you hear the piper play.
I'll take away the wise man; I'll take away the fools
And bring their bodies all to clay.

All the politicians of high and low degree,
Lords and Ladies great and small.
Don't think that you'll escape and need not dance with me,
I'll make you come when I do call.

Chorus

It may be in the day, it may be in the night,
Prepare yourselves to dance and pray
That when the piper plays "The Shaking of the Sheets"
You may to Heaven dance that way.

Chorus x2
(Then play Black Joke)

"Six feet of earth make us all of one size"

Sorry, I'm no good at ABCs (and not that great on dots either) but I could sing it to you.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Shaking out the sheets
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 07:01 AM