Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'

Subject: Lyr Add: MY MINER LAD
From: Alec
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:58 AM

MY MINER LAD

O bonny's my lad as he walks doon the street
Wi' his lamp in his hand, aal canny and neat
His teeth white as iv'ry, his eyes black as slaws
I love my miner lad iv'ryone knows

Sometimes he has money, sometimes none at aal
But he'll share what he has, be it nivvor so smaal
Nae laddie is blither, nae laddie mair kind
And he'll stand by his word when he's spoken his mind.

We'll build us a castle of highest renoon
That ladies and masters will never pull doon
The king loves his queen, and the emp'ror the same
And I love my miner lad, who can me blame?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: Alec
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 10:12 AM

The above is the first in a series of Northumbrian songs I hope to add to the digital tradition. This one is from County Durham & is simply the song of a young wife singing the praises of her husband whilst yearning for a higher standard of living for them both.
I may add a Northumbrian glossary at some point should it be considered necessary.
I think the dialect in this song is fairly accessible, though southerners (England) may like to bear in mind that 'round these parts "castle" rhymes with "hassle" rather than "parcel".

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: nutty
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 12:25 PM

Ingrid and Barry Temple sing a rather longer version of this song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:06 PM

Korson collected an American 6-stanza version of this beaut song in the Pennsylvanian coalfields and published it in his 'Minstrels of the Mine Patch' under the title 'She Loves Her Miner Lad'. A fine recording of it may be found on Men of the Deeps 'Coal Fire in Winter' Men of the Deeps Music CD 02 506600. A significant difference in the American version is that it is from a third-person perspective: 'Bonnie's her lad', 'We'll build him a castle' etc.

I think the Ian Campbell Folk Group also recorded a Scots-flavoured version.

--Stewie

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:15 PM

When posting above, I had forgotten a previous thread on this song wherein I posted the American version and Masato posted yet another song from Korson with title 'I Love My Miner Lad'. The thread also indicates there is a Yorkshire version in the DT:

EARLIER THREAD

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM

Apart from 'canny', which is mainly used only in the north of England and in Scotland these days, there is no dialect, as such, in the unprovenanced text Alec has posted; all of the words are standard English, though some are given "dialectal" spellings to reflect local pronounciation. That may seem over-particular, but it's a useful distinction to make if you are going to start giving people instructions on pronounciation and so on.

Where did you get it? As Stewie mentions, there are further references, and other, longer texts, in the old discussion indicated, while the "Yorkshire version" is a set of 'Six Jolly Miners' that includes two of the verses you quote. It can be seen at MINER LAD.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: 'My Miner Lad'
From: Alec
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 03:07 AM

Thanks for the input everybody,the version I know was,until I followed your postings,the only version I was aware of.
As to where I got it it was popular locally when I was a child, (though I was brought up in Northumberland, more specifically Tynedale,)It was said to be a Durham song in those days (sixties'& Seventies') I'm fairly certain that this is the version that Sheila Armstrong sang at a commemorative concert in Durham Cathedral on the occasion of the 1000th Anniversary of that beautiful building's founding.
Your right Malcolm my (tongue in cheek) note on pronuciation had no place here,this was provoked by an encounter yesterday morning with a man from Berkshire, who was all to keen to air his negative views about somewhere called "Noocarsle" despite having alighted here for the first time in his life less than an hour earlier.
Should have kept that out of the 'Cat.