Lyr Req: Say Who You Are Love (Sydney Carter)

Subject: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 02:47 AM

I'm trying to track down a song I heard many years ago in Melbourne, Australia. The only words I can recall are from the chorus

Say who you are love and not hello
Give us your name and give us your number
Say who you are love and not hello
If I press button B all me pennies will go

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 03:21 AM

"Press button A"- B returned your money. Showing my age again. My old mate Rory Heap used to sing this, but I've lost touch with him in the last 20 years. Can't remember many of the words though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 03:23 AM

The Song is buried in the Forum. Look down the thred for a post by Giok.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: GUEST,Ian Pittaway
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 04:28 AM

The song is by Sydney Carter. It's not called The Telephone Song, as on the thread linked to the thread that's linked to the above thread(!), but Say Who You Are, Love. It's in one of the 4 Stainer and Bell books of Sydney's songs, In The Present Tense. The Stainer and Bell website has all the details. There's a lovely recording of it on Sydney Carter and Jeremy Taylor at Eton (Sydney ably accompanied by Martin Carthy), an LP which will, alas, probably never make it to CD.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: Little Robyn
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 05:13 AM

Many's the girl I have got to know
Through a fault on the part of the GPO.
I'd try it again but it wouldn't be right,
I promised to telephone Mother tonight

So say who you are Love and not 'Hello',
Give me your name or give me your number,
Say who you are Love and not 'Hello',
If I press button A all my pennies will go.

I used to have a recording of Sydney Carter singing it but that's all I can remember and I don't know where the recording went.
Robyn

Subject: Lyr Add: SAY WHO YOU ARE, LOVE (Sydney Carter)
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 05:31 AM

Subject: Lyr Add: THE TELEPHONE SONG (Sydney Carter)
From: GUEST,bigJ - PM
Date: 08 Nov 00 - 02:45 PM

Well, everything comes.......... Here are the words courtesy of the group Three City Four on their 1965 LP (Decca LK 4705) where it's sung by group member Martin Carthy. Other members are Leon Rosselson, Marian Mackenzie and Ralph Trainer. Many thanks to Geoff for copying the LP and putting the minidisc in the post to me.

THE TELEPHONE SONG by Sydney Carter

Standing alone in the damp and the dark
Of a filthy old phone box in Finsbury Park
I dialed Fremantle they give me a FRO,
I asked for a Primrose, they give me a PRO.

CHORUS
So, Say who you are, love, and not 'Hello'
Give me your name and give me your number.
Say who you are, love, and not 'Hello'
If I press button 'A' all my pennies will go.

My mother is waiting at Lancaster Gate,
I promised to phone at a quarter to eight.
I've done all the things that they tell me to do
But instead of my mother I keep getting you.

There's many the girl that I've got to know
Through a fault on the line of the GPO,
I'd do it again but it wouldn't be right.
I promised to telephone mother tonight.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: Lanfranc
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 06:35 AM

I sneak this song into performances from time to time, and it brings a nostalgic smile to the lips of those who remember the old button A and B telephone kiosks. The cellphone generation needs to have it explained, however!

When I moved into a bedsit in SW10 in the late 60s I was delighted to discover it had a FLAxman number - so much more classy than FREmantle up the road in Earls Court, doncherknow!

Can't remember now where FRObisher and PROspect were. Somehow 7352, 7373, 7776 and 7774 (the modern equivalents) are less romantic.

Alan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: So Say Who You Are Love
From: Flash Company
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 09:58 AM

I remember hearing Sidney sing this, along with his song about Eros (One leg up an' one leg dahn) and Down Below. Lovely man!

FC

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Say Who You Are (Sydney Carter)
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 01:12 PM

This song is now represented on "Hat Trick," the compilation of four compact discs issued by EMI in the past ten years or so, for which the artists are Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, as in "At the Drop of a Hat."

Donald Swann, at the piano, performs "Say Who You Are" as a solo; and his clearly enunciated lyrics are just as they have been printed in previous posts on this thread.