Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)

Subject: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnstone'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 06:22 AM

I'd love the lyrics for this varaint of Bold Johnson/Two Butchers.
It appears on the self-titled 1968 LP "Sweeney's Men". Sung by Johnny Moynihan. Does anyone know if it's a traditional variant or not?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnstone'
From: GUEST,Joe Offer at the library
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 08:47 PM

fresh
refresh
fresh again

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnstone'
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Oct 05 - 05:10 AM

More to refresh than to help actually:

It's 'Johnston' without the 'e' on the LP and the notes say "we know very little about this song".
None of the 7 lyrics I have of this song are those Sweeney's men sing.
To add another title variant, Damien Barber sings it as 'Three jolly butchers'.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnstone'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 05 Oct 05 - 07:54 AM

Ahh, because on my copy (part of a 4CD set by Pulse called Irish Folk Favourites) it has the 'e'.
So if a helpful clone could change it...
It's not from any of the usual suspects, like Songs of the People or Bronson?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnstone'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 05 Oct 05 - 08:08 AM

How like Martin Carthy's version?

I can ask Johnny - but doubt if he'll remember!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sweeney's Men's 'Johnston'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 07:04 AM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 04:46 AM

Refresh.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:31 AM

I had a closer look (listen).

(1) The spelling 'Johnstone' only appears on the LP cover, on the LP itself it is spelled 'Johnston'.

(2) I've listened again to the lyrics and compared them with all versions I have. None of them is similar. Of the perhaps traditional ones in particular it is neither similar to the version in Palmer's book about English Country songs, nor to the version in McColls book of Travellers songs nor to the version in 'Marrowbones' (from the Sharp House collection).

I think I could transcribe the lyrics if that's what you want. However, I understand that you are more interested in where this particular version comes from. I'd like to know that too.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:41 AM

I haven't played the LP for many years but in my head I think I can recall the sound of the track.

I have a nagging suspicion that it has an American old-time feel to it something like a Byrd Moore sounding tune, but I don't have any easy access to info on variants from that part of the musical spectrum as it's not a main interest of mine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:56 AM

Thanks, Wolfgang. I'd appreciate both. Pretty bad at transcribing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 05:59 PM

I've had a go. Maybe Wolfgang can correct my mistakes:

JOHNSTON(E)
(Trad)

Johnstone he was riding along as fast as he could ride
Till he thought he heard a woman, he heard a woman cry

And Johnstone getting off his horse and searching the woods all round
Till he came upon a woman with her hair pinned to the ground

And Johnstone being a man of his own and being a man and bold
He has taken off his overcoat to cover her from the cold

Now woman, my dearest woman, who that brought you here for thus far
Who that brought you here this gay morning with your hair pinned to the ground

Oh it was three bold and struggling men with swords keen and hard(?)
Who that brought me here this gay morning with my hair pinned to the ground

And Johnstone getting on his horse and the woman getting on behind
They rode down that lonesome highway their fortunes for to find

As they were riding on along as fast as they could ride
She has thrown her fingers to her lips and gave three shivering cries

And out sprang three bold and struggling men with swords keen and hard(?)
Who that commanded Johnstone, commanded him to stand

Oh I will stand, said Johnstone, I'll stand, then said he
For I never was in all of my life afraid of any three

And Johnstone he killed two of them, not minding the woman behind
While he was at the other one she stabbed him from behind

And the day was free and a market day and the people all passing by
Could have seen this awful murder, could have seen bold Johnstone die

As sung by Sweeney's Men

Transcribing made me realise for the first time that this is no variant of Child #088 (Young Johnstone). I have another version of this, by Ian Benzie, but no notes or info on origins at all.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 07:07 PM

Sounds very like Martin Carthy's version to me?

Martin

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 08:03 PM

"Three Butchers (Dixon and Johnson, Johnson, etc.)" has a passel of versions.

The version posted by Suzanne, except that "Johnson, being a man of his word..." is placed after the fourth verse, is very close to "Johnson," p. 223, "Folksinger's Wordbook," Fred and Irwin Silber, Oak, 1973. Only a few words are changed. They provide no attribution, or source.

It is not the one titled "Johnson" in Greenfield and Mansfield, which is a Three Butchers' version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 09:22 PM

I suspect that 'Sweeney's Men' learned the song from a Pete Seeger or Peggy Seeger record; they both recorded arrangements of it, having in their turn got the song from a recording of Troy Cambron, made in 1940 as part of a documentation project at the FSA migrant work camps in central California.

See Voices from the Dust Bowl:

Johnson-Jinkson

See also Remembering the Old Songs:   Johnson-Jinkson

'Matthews Southern Comfort' recorded a further arrangement of the same version a little later; they could have learned it from the Sweeneys or the Seegers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 10:01 PM

After seeing Malcolm's links, it is obvious that the Silbers got the version in their 'Wordbook' from the one sung by Troy Cambron, although perhaps filtered through the Seegars as he suggests.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 08:01 AM

Thank you very much.
Malcolm's suggestion makes a lot of sense.
Susanne, I seem to hear swords keen in hand.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 05:51 AM

Susanne, that I could correct one of your transcriptions would be a rare event.

However, Le Scaramouche is right, it is 'keen in hand' in the two verses, corroborated but the 'Folksinger's Workbook'.

BTW, I hear them singing 'Johnson' each time despite the different title on the record but I guess the difference in pronounciation is quite small. The Folksingers Workbook has it as Johnson BTW.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 08:14 PM

Yes, I've already corrected it to 'keen in hand'. Thanks, Scar!

The album sleeve clearly uses the 't', although the original title - going by contributions above - seems to be simply 'Johnson'. I can't check what Ian Benzie uses and what he sings, can't get at the tape just now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 03:45 AM

All this really has to do with the way pronounced and spelled on the Borders.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 06:09 PM

From the above I got the impression it was an American song. ?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 06:29 PM

An American variant of a British song, the Three Butchers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 08:05 PM

It seems that the earliest known form of the story is a broadside issued by P Brooksby, West Smithfield, London, in the last quarter of the 17th century. It was written by Paul Burges, and titled The Three Worthy Butchers of the North. A condensed re-write quickly appeared (it's possible, I suppose, that this was an independent composition if, as Joseph Ebsworth thought, the story was "genuine history"); this resembles more closely the forms mostly found in later tradition.

Burges' ballad appears to be set in Norfolk, but the location is indeterminate in later forms.

See Roxburghe Ballads, VII, 59-63. The Burges text is also quoted in Helen Hartness Flanders et al., New Green Mountain Songster, 238-244, along with a set from Vermont tradition which, unusually, derives from the earlier form.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 07:28 PM

Many thanks, you two! Malcolm, just how do you do it? Do your books still allow you floorspace in your house?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 09:17 PM

Not very much, especially since I discovered ebay. Mind you, I just found a five pound note under a pile of books. Untidiness does have its compensations.

This might be a good time to mention again Steve Roud's absolutely indispensable Folksong and Broadside Indexes. They are the single most important finding aid ever produced for English-language traditional song studies. You still need the books, of course, but at least you know what you're looking for, and where to look. Before Roud, I had to rely on my unreliable, associative memory; and the very inadequate indexes I'd started to compile for myself. I can't recommend Steve's work highly enough.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Johnston (from Sweeney's Men)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:17 AM

I agree totally with Malcolm re Roud. Having lost my customised version of Roud on a stolen laptop, I'm faced with rebuilding it from Steve's original. It simply saves so much time and rarely, if ever, leads you astray.

Regards